Automotive News [sub]: “The magazine normally recommends cars in its April issue. But it singled out eight Detroit 3 vehicles early because consumers may be concerned about reliability while General Motors and Chrysler LLC seek federal assistance, said David Champion, the magazine’s chief car tester. ‘We’re only about halfway through our testing, so it’s not a complete list,’ he said. ‘But because of the public interest, we thought it would be useful.”” Huh? Since when is it Consumer Reports’ job to allay consumer fears about the reliability of the products produced by a small group of automakers, especially in response to an industry-wide event? In other words, why the special treatment? Even if it’s all about catering to a public need– remembering that Consumer Reports is a non-profit organization and there is no statistical data to support this position– CR’s special issue increases the psychological polarization between domestic and import-branded vehicles. And that’s not a good thing– for the domestics. If nothing else, the D2.8’s abject inability to identify the difference between quality relative to each other and quality compared to the wider car market has contributed to their failure. Anyway, the “winners” in the gallery below and/or after the jump.
“Consumer Reports named the V-6 Chevrolet Malibu LTZ as its top-rated Detroit 3 vehicle and also selected the Cadillac DTS. The other six winners were Ford Motor cars: the Ford Fusion SEL and Mercury Milan Premier, Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable, and Lincoln MKZ and Ford Taurus X. No Chrysler vehicles were recommended.”
See what I mean?
They’ve been working hard the last couple of years to prove that they’re not anti-domestic. For example, the Ford Fusion has been on most, maybe all of the covers for its fall New Car Preview and its April Annual Auto Issue.
Why? They might feel somewhat responsible for the plight of Detroit. But mostly it’s a PR and marketing move, to broaden their appeal.
Operating TrueDelta, it has become clearer and clearer to me that CR is driven more than anything by a desire to increase its revenues. As are other organizations, but their rep is that they’re above such monetary concerns. They’re not.
They’ve been doing very well with their PR efforts. Whenever they issue a press release, it gets picked up by hundreds of news outlets. Like the one mentioned here. So, issuing a list of domestic car recommendations–essentially a repeat of a few months ago–gets them many mentions in the press, which sells more memberships and magazines.
Their results continue to lag TrueDelta’s by about ten months, on average. Their current set are based on an April survey. Our next update, scheduled for February 5, will cover through the end of 2008.
See how large the differences are between the domestics and imports, here:
http://www.truedelta.com/latest_results.php
I’m guessing that CR is responding to reader complaints that they are biased against 2.8 vehicles. Which is beside the point, as RF points out.
Or, they feel guilty for recommending so few “American” cars in the past, and this is a mea culpa.
Appropriateness aside, this list is just wierd. Cadillac DTS? It’s as relevant to car buyers under 70 as a wooly mammoth is to receeding polar ice caps. Why would they include the DTS, MKZ, and that faceless Mercury but not the CTS, which is on paper and in person far superior?
What a cop out by CR. So what none of the Detroit cars can win a comparison against the imports.
We the tax payers are funding them now, they don’t have to build competitive products any longer.
I grew up in a household that didn’t spend a buck fifty without checking with consumer reports first, but I gave up my subscription a couple of years ago. I just couldn’t take the obvious agendas that permeate the magazine.
I’m with Invisible on this one. This is one more example of the logic that American companies (and by extension Americans) can’t compete with the rest of the world so we’ve got to water down our own expectations. What a load of crap! God help our country.
So now CR is falling into the “Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations”
What I find amazing about the above list is that they name the same 2 cars a total of SIX TIMES (The Taurus X is based on the Taurus platform). So that Ford Fusion and Taurus platforms consist of 6 out of the 8 cars CR would recommend.
This is not a list, it is a a white flag for the domestic auto manufacturers. CR is basically saying the only competitive products are the 2 Ford sedan platforms, and the big ass Caddy, with the Malibu thrown in for good measure.
Don’t even bother with anything else.
I’m sure that some readers want it, so there’s no reason not to give it to them. Just so long as they don’t water down the actual rankings, I don’t see the problem here.
How can it possibly be comparative if you aren’t publishing information about a market segment’s other competitors?!?!?!
Cadillac should be building more cars in the DTS vein instead of chasing the BMW wannabe market.
Since when is it Consumer Reports’ job to allay consumer fears about the reliability of the products produced by a small group of automakers half of the cars that Americans buy
There you go.
How can it possibly be comparative if you aren’t publishing information about a market segment’s other competitors?!?!?!
They are publishing it, it’s just another one of many lists. They aren’t going to stop collecting survey data about other vehicles, or stop testing the transplants and imports.
Two vehicles on this year’s “D2.8 list you don’t have to stretch for” are about to be axed: Sable and Taurus X, cutting the number of nameplates to 6 for now. Come April, they’ll probably add a couple, not that their kind words on the Ford Flex helped sales.
@ Pch101
They aren’t going to stop collecting survey data about other vehicles, or stop testing the transplants and imports.
I understand that, but where is the baseline? The “singled out eight Detroit 3 vehicles” could finish in the eight last spots. Crazy.
Consumer Reports should be an unbiased consumer tool and not work for the benefit of any manufacturer. This move demonstrates clear bias in my view.
I understand that, but where is the baseline?
It’s the same baseline. Given a set of criteria that isn’t changing, they will present a list of their recommended vehicles that happen to be produced by Detroit.
CR recommends all sorts of vehicles. They aren’t going to recommend cars for this list that they aren’t recommending elsewhere within the publication.
It’s up to the readers to decide what to do with the data. There will surely be other comparisons by vehicle class, etc. that allow readers to make other comparisons. CR survey data almost always shows the transplants doing a better job, and I can’t see how that’s going to change, barring any major changes from the 2.8.
What a cop out by CR. So what none of the Detroit cars can win a comparison against the imports.
Not entirely true. Some domestic cars rate very well, and CR does maintain two scales: one for ratings, and one for reliability. This is a cross-section of cars that a) are domestic, b) are reasonably reliable and c) perform adequately.** It is not biased, it’s a distillation of their existing list.
What they’re doing is filtering their results down to domestic nameplates only as a service to readers. They’re not changing rankings, nor running a “Special Olympics” award scheme like the other magazines (COTY, 10Best) that qualifies only new cars. At most, I’d be insulted if I were a domestic fan because they’re implying I’m either too sensitive to see my beloved Chevy bested by a Honda, or too stupid to use a highlighter.
Other than that, this isn’t a big deal. Get over it.
** By those standards, you won’t see a single Chrysler, though I’m surprised that the PT Cruiser isn’t on the list.
I’m not surprised by the absence of Chrysler, Dodgs, and Jeep junk here.
For whatever reason, a chart of total industry sales by brand is not available on TTAC, even though two of your chief competitors throw it up along with discussion of monthly individual brand performance. (You guys gotta do this in the future!) So I took the liberty to pull it up, enter the data into Excel, and calculate the percentage of US market sales still held by Detroit-3 brands. That is, no funny business by including Saab or Volvo (whose sales are negligible anyway). Note that I don’t have Jaguar or Suzuki figures, but these are minor drops in a near-900K monthly sales figure.
Anyway, to make a long story short, it looks like Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, Cadillac, Saturn, GMC, and Hummer have about 37% of the market thesedays.
Operating TrueDelta, it has become clearer and clearer to me that CR is driven more than anything by a desire to increase its revenues. As are other organizations, but their rep is that they’re above such monetary concerns. They’re not.
Michael,
While I agree with your technical points—TD does have quicker turnaround times and, in some ways, more accurate data—I think you may want to tone down accusations above, or at least qualify them more thoroughly. As a competitor service, you’re damaging yourself through what could be misconstrued as sour grapes.
You have a good product. Sell your advantages versus CR; don’t make moral-high-ground claims.
That said, CR does have to make revenue targets (if for no other reason than they need to meet their costs), I’m sure, but as a non-profit they’re nowhere near as likely to be compromised as, say, Car And Driver. Stuff like this, which we’ll call “Human Interest Content”, is not much different from their past focused articles on fuel misers, the stock market, or Christmas gifts. The domestics are in the news, and there’s no real shame in being topical.
The other six winners are really two cars built on heavily foreign platforms:
Three cars built in Mexico on the old Mazda 6 platform:
Ford Fusion SEL
Mercury Milan Premier
Lincoln MKZ
And three cars built in Chicago on a old Volvo platform:
Ford Taurus
Ford Taurus X
Mercury Sable
Also, the Cadillac DTS? Hopefully GM has that car’s quality right after the 15 or so years they have been building it for, but is this “Consumer Reports” or “Hearse and Limousine Coach Builder Reports”?
Who?
Were they the magazine that flipped a Samurai in a slalom test?
They’re still around? Who knew?
As a participant in TrueDelta’s surveys, and regular reader of Consumer Reports, I’m not seeing where the results are wildly different.
I’ll leave it to Mr. Karesh to manage his own business, but I have my doubts that attacking CR makes True Delta look any better.
CR’s survey has a couple of positive features. It has a huge number of participants, which as a statistical matter increases the likelihood of its accuracy, and it is easy to fill out quickly, which provides good odds that the responses will be accurate.
As far as I can tell, CR, JD Power and True Delta are all fairly consistent with each other. Honestly, are there any noteworthy examples in which the reliability data radically deviates among the surveys?
So, they put this list together under pressure to do so? Out of the goodness of their hearts? When was the last time CR created a list like this?
I’m sure the timing is just coincidental.
CR holds it’s non-advertiser sponsorship banner very high. The timing of this calls into question CR’s true independence.
I don’t recall them doing something similar when Nissan was on the ropes pre Ghosn.
Mercy listings?
Domestics listed out of pity?
If anything this gives the appearance that domestics are even more in need of some sort of crutch, and hence not competitive with ‘imports.’
To quote Charlie Brown-“Good Grief!”
I am with PCH101 and psarhjinian-this is a major non-event.
Sheesh.
I am always bewildered by the looney levels of anger that CR seems to be a lightening rod for.
One day they have an import bias, now they are giving the domestics special treatment.
Micheal K.-I would have to respectfully echo a number of the items psarhjinian mentioned. I appreciate what you are doing, and as your base grows you are becoming more relevant.
Sell your strengths.
Toyota didn’t get wheere they are by bashing GM, they did their job and let people draw their conclusions.
Attacking some one that is not attacking you only makes you look weaker.
Please take this as constructive, it is not meant to be otherwise.
Regards,
Bunter
Nobody seemed to mind when CR’s official default position was to automatically rate Toyotas as being more reliable.
CR is one of the more hypocritical non-profits around. They operate like any other publication, advertising on television with offers of gifts and other premiums, yet hide behind their “non-profit” status. They do commerce using companies’ brand names, in fact they brag about “brand name” ratings, yet if one of those brands chooses to mention the name Consumer Reports in their ads, CR goes ballistic and sues saying that will harm their reputation as an impartial source.
Just a bunch of anti-business parasites.
as they have done regarding other products, this article is addressing a perceived deficiency in one particular product (domestic autos) using CR collected data. i really don’t see a problem. if there was an agenda here, then they would certainly have softened their reviews of many domestic autos, the much-hated sebring among them.
“Nobody seemed to mind when CR’s official default position was to automatically rate Toyotas as being more reliable.”
C’mon Ronnie, they got raked for that in every forum I’ve been in.
They have discontinued that practice but they did that for ANY manufacturer that earned it with consistent excellence.
Lighten up.
Bunter
So, they put this list together under pressure to do so? Out of the goodness of their hearts? When was the last time CR created a list like this?
When they did a list of recommended fuel misers and green options a few months back, as gas was spiking and the green movement was more relevant. They took their regular rankings and vetted them given a set of criteria.
I’m sure the timing is just coincidental.
Of course it’s not. The domestics are in the news and on the ropes. There’s a renewed interest in buying the best car from a domestic nameplate, so they provided a similarly vetted list. Have you seen the creampuffery from Motor Trend or Car And Driver on the same topic? If you think CR’s work is problematic, their lists are outright paid shilling.
It’s not like they’re saying the Aveo or Sebring are any more worthless; they’re just singling out domestic vehicles that are good buys. This isn’t a conspiracy, and you can duplicate this list yourself by going to their website, printing the net list of Recommended vehicles, and crossing off anything that isn’t a Ford, GM or Chrysler product.
Again, that they’re doing this is more insulting to the intellect of their subscribers than anything else. It’s not at all factually dubious.
Funny the T-X is on there and the Flex is absent.
But, yeah, good job Ford wasting BILLIONS on developing the Flex…when simply advertising the T-X would have sufficed.
Bold Moves.
Funny the T-X is on there and the Flex is absent.
The Flex is too new to be recommended. That standard operating procedure for CR: they’ll only automatically recommend a vehicle with a strong history of reliable launches.
The Camry lost that privilege recently, as did the 4Runner. Now they have to wait a year like most others.
But, yeah, good job Ford wasting BILLIONS on developing the Flex…when simply advertising the T-X would have sufficed.
True, that.
First, CR cannot recommend a new vehicle for which they do not have sufficient reliability data. Therefore, you will not find the Flex (even though it is rated higher than the Taurus X). Maybe we will next year. The CTS, while receiving high ratings has some reliability issues, and so cannot make the list.
This is not a pity party for Detroit – all of these cars are recommended by CR normally. They are just highlighting the fact that there are good U.S. cars. CR has gushed over the Fusion in just about every issue since 2007 when they realized that its reliability was higher than average, and they are now infatuated with the Malibu since its reliability ratings now seem to be above average.
If this were truly a pity party, they would have included at least one Chrysler product. That’s when you know their souls are sold.
@P71 and psarhjinian
I get really tired of false information being perpetuated.
Ford didn’t spend billions on the Flex. It was in the few hundred million range. And what the Flex brings to Ford is far more than what the Taurus X did. The conquest rate on the Flex is higher than the Taurus X could ever have been. The transaction price on a Flex is much higher than that on a Taurus X. The types of customers it is conquesting in greater proportion than any Ford vehicle are import luxury buyers. A boon to the brand that the Taurus X could never provide even if Ford sold a lot of them.
The truth about what?
No good deed goes unpunished.
I’ve gotta speak up in Michael Karesh’s defense. He didn’t “bash” CR, and even if he had CR deserves to have a little gloss rubbed off the halo. “Non-profit” is not the same as “altruistic.” Consumers Union, like General Electric, the Boy Scouts, Presbyterian Church, the GOP or other organizations wants to grow and prosper.
CU’s drift into left-wing political advocacy cured me of a lifelong habit of reading CR every month, but I concede they’re good at being objective in product evaluations. The marketing challenge for them, in the Internet Age, is getting and keeping eyeballs. One answer is to make people fear making a choice without CR’s advice (caveat emptor!); the other is to stress differentiation. This product ranks high; that product ranks low. If CR said “it doesn’t really matter much what brand you choose,” readers would conclude the magazine isn’t worth reading. They’d just go ahead and buy items on the basis of convenience, style, habit or whatever subjective traits matter most to them.
I still like reading CR’s auto tests, but long ago I learned just because CR ranked a car high doesn’t mean I’d enjoy driving it, and vice-versa.
50MERC-I think we largely agree on CRs zealotry on certain items. They should can the low grade politics.
Feel the same about their tests also. Frankly I feel that way about everybodies testing-they have their opinion and that’s fine.
I think many enthusiasts get down on CR just because they don’t worship performance and styling. Hey, it’s not what they focus on, get over it.
I think that CR’s mileage testing may be about the only truely useful comparison available. They use multimple drivers and a consistent method (reported mpg in most mag/website tests is a joke). Yes, your mileage will vary, but they give city, hwy and combined numbers that are far more realistic than the EPA (compare any test mpg of a, say Cobalt-even an XFE, with the EPA-GM is probably better at tweaking for that test than anyone).
My only point to Mike K. is that when he gets down on CR, and he comes down pretty hard at times, he hurts his credibility more than theirs.
TTFN
Bunter
I can see a rationale behind the story. Right now, you can get some really big bargains on many of these cars. CR’s mission is to help you get value, and there are likely a lot of CR readers thinking about going for one of these deals right now. Knowing which ones to avoid would be good info. I am not a fan of the 2.8, but I will admit that most of their products aren’t so bad that at the right price they offer a good value. If you save enough up front to overcome the poor value retention and extra maintenance, then it can be a good deal to buy less than the best.
We make this same decision on all sorts of products all the time, just not such expensive ones.
CR’s mission is to help you get value, and there are likely a lot of CR readers thinking about going for one of these deals right now.
I figure that it’s probably simpler than that. They have some readers or potential readers who want it, and it costs them nothing to reformat content that they already have elsewhere on their website and in their publications.
Some of the posters seem to think that there is some lesser standard that gets vehicles onto this list. There isn’t; they are already otherwise recommending these vehicles. It’s just another list, similar to having lists that are based upon vehicle classes, or sorted by price, or by fuel economy or emissions.
“I can see a rationale behind the story. Right now, you can get some really big bargains on many of these cars. CR’s mission is to help you get value, and there are likely a lot of CR readers thinking about going for one of these deals right now. Knowing which ones to avoid would be good info.”
I agree with Landcrusher. I also think that it’s a good marketing gimmick for them too as the news is guaranteed to pick up the list and mention CR’s name. That’s free advertising, folks.
As for CR itself, yeah, I still subcribe but every month I wonder why I do. I would prefer to only get their web version, and skip the paper since there’s nothing to read it the magazine. Ever since Bose sued their pants off years ago, they’re afraid to publish their testing methods and that was the only interesting thing to read in the rag.
Their current value? Only in generating statistical reports on reliability, which is being over taken by True Delta et al. As for helping to choose products their reports are of little value.
One of the things I stumbled across in their Site is a blog where readers were complaining that CR won’t provide any tests on mattresses… CR’s answer was that it’s too hard for them to do.
Ok…. then why do we need CR?
The CTS was deemed too unreliable to be recommended. Otherwise it scores pretty high
CTS- 84 points out of 100
STS- 77 points
The Lambdas score 74 points
All are unreliable
CR to me is by far the best place to read auto reviews. Because they don’t focus so much on “performance” and track times but will tell you if you’re going to bump your head every time you pick something out of the trunk.
Plus they don’t do brakestand starts so acceleration runs are more realistic.
Lokki- you obviously didn’t read the mattress blog or you would know the reason why.