My name is Chris. I’m a car review addict. I spend an inordinate amount of my time and energy reading car reviews. Fortunately, there’s no shortage of online and print dealers dedicated to the not-so-obscure art of describing an automobile. With such a superabundance of automotive editorial, why do I have such a hard time reconciling professional reviews with my own test driving experience? Are car reviewers— TTAC’s included—blinded by bias?

Yes. The main problem is emotional. Whether professional car hack or amateur enthusiast, the ability to analyze a vehicle is occluded by the emotional imperatives that make us want to attempt the task in the first place. No matter how objective a car journalist tries to be, they can no more surmount their inherent emotional imperatives than they can resist cocking their ear at the burble of a V8 or cast a loving eye on the sophistication of a silent hybrid.

These subconscious patterns– what Russian behaviorists call “stimulus response patterns”– form early in life. My wife talks about her first car with tremendous enthusiasm. A Chevette. Say what you will about the Chevette’s relative or absolute abilities, she will always view the car in a positive light, associating it with her newfound mobility and expanding social life. In the same sense, author JK Rowling waxes lyrically about her Ford Anglia. And I have special place in my heart for the Datsun 240K.

Were the Chevette, 240K and Anglia good cars? Perhaps. But one thing is for sure: no rational person would consider my wife’s, Ms. Rowling’s or my own assessments of these models as objective analysis. Clearly, our opinion of these machines is colored by emotional events in our lives– rather than automotive excellence or lack thereof (although I swear that the 240K was a great car).

We never outgrow these automatic automotive responses; we simply build on them. And just as past behavior is the best guide to future performance, enthusiasts stash their emotional baggage in the trunk of any new car they test. You can often see it even before they clap eyes or climb aboard a new car.

For example, U.S. bloggers are buzzing at the imminent arrival of the BMW 1-Series stateside. The car has generated enough Internet sizzle to shame an Apple iGizmo. A great deal of this excitement is created by enthusiasts’ idea of what the 1-Series should be– a modern 2002– rather than the car itself (which appears to be a porky hatchback conversion). The 1-Series’ association with the “old” 2002 has permanently prejudiced many pistonheads' perception of the product.

Experience and expectation are not the only factors clouding car reviewers’ judgment. They’re also skewed (not to say skewered) by their perception of any given car’s place in the reviewer's real or imagined social associations. What Kurt Vonnegut called the “granfalloon.” 

No one is immune from granfalloonery. If you’ve ever waved to another driver of the same car, or dismissed Hummer owners as right wing fanatics, or considered hybrid drivers tree-hugging hypocrites, or passed judgment on a car you haven’t tested, then you’re the owner of a granfalloon. As social creatures, there’s simply no avoiding it. In fact, our socially-determined prejudices are so pervasive they’re background noise.

Automotively speaking, these hidden biases center on brands. Our socially-derived experiences and expectations of car brands are powerful and deeply ingrained. They form the basis of all our product perceptions and choices and, thus, account for accusations of bias aimed at reviewers. Critics' critics operate under a fundamentally different granfalloon than the journalist’s.

Have a look at the one-star rating TTAC’s publisher Robert Farago recently awarded the new Ford Focus. Had the car been presented as a KIA or a new Chinese brand, would Mr. Farago’s final assessment have been more generous? Would he have lauded the Focus for possessing an above average interior for an economy car? 

Perhaps Farago was [consciously or unconsciously] comparing the new American Focus to the supposedly superior Euro Focus denied American consumers. I believe that Farago’s negative attitude towards the car was triggered by both the engine bay’s flimsy electrical tape AND what he believed a Ford should be.

In short, given the inescapable avalanche of emotional associations that shape human perceptions, no car reviewer can ever claim to be an “unbiased” critic. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing. As long as he or she uses “emotional intelligence.”

A car reviewer should try to balance emotional imperatives with rational analysis. It’s not a question of removing emotion. Take that away and we’d all be driving Toyota Corollas (my bad). It’s a matter of acknowledging emotional responses and then understanding, sympathizing and respecting people who don’t share them. A little more of that attitude on this site would add welcome light, and remove unnecessary heart.

[TTAC's posting policy: no accusations of bias against the site in the comments section. Normally, we ask commentators objecting to our editorial stance or style to email robert.farago@thetruthaboutcars.com to engage in a private dialog. In this case, you are free to vent any such concerns– provided you stay within the bounds of mutual respect.]

There’s something deliciously ironic about slogging through one of LA’s infamous rush hours to attend a “green” cars award ceremony. The multi-lane Harbor Freeway plays host to a long slow dance of cars and semis, tailpipes steadily churning out brownish plumes into a blue sky. The dominant hue is not green but red: the omnipresent brake lights mocking California’s long-abandoned promises of fast, efficient personal travel. It’s almost enough to persuade a driver to ride the bus. Like me, most just crank on caffeine and escape boredom via the stereo, instead.

Safely ensconced within the confines of the Convention Center, road rage gives way to the journalistic trough [fair disclosure] and a wander amongst enough exotic metal to give a 49er a heart attack. In my dreams, I can grab a fast steed from the floor and point it at a winding road and go. In reality, manufacturers employ Swiffer-wielding minions to dust the untouchables.

Anyway, back to this business of saving the planet. This year’s auto show has been transformed into an overhead cam version of Earth Day. Even our press room sponsor proclaims that it’s now “dedicated to a green future.” In past years, such unbridled vehicular earth worship from a tire manufacturer would be about as credible as Vogue promoting a positive body image to a bulimic support group. Today, auto industry types don’t as much play the green card as staple it to their forehead.

The third annual Green Car of the Year award comes courtesy of the Green Car Journal™; which is also the Green Car Journal Online™, GreenCar.com™, GreenCars.com™ and Green Car Online.com™. Whether or not Ron Cogan practices the TM that he preaches, the editor and publisher behind these ventures has fully grasped the marketing possibilities of cleaning-up the image of the [once and future] planet destroyer. Clearly. 

If you were expecting a sneering panel of hippy judges drenched in patchouli and incense, think again. In addition to such green luminaries as Jean-Michel Cousteau (eldest son of Jacques, the original Fish Whisperer) and Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope, both Jay Leno and Carroll Shelby voted in this year’s eco-electoral college. Not that the (former) champions of unbridled horsepower bothered showing up. Still, had they attended, the erstwhile eco-converts would have been flattered (not to say intoxicated) by the substantial media presence.

Mr. Cogan’s buff book has yet to find an alternative fuel that it doesn’t like. This year’s five nominees amped-up the hybrid hype, but good. GM dominated the entries, with its hybrid versions of the Aura, Malibu and Tahoe. Hybrid variants of the Mazda Tribute and Nissan Altima completed the list of contenders. 

The esteemed panel awarded the coveted prize to the Chevrolet Tahoe. Mr. Cogan burnished its halo with all the enthusiasm you’d expect from a man who jets around the world on someone else’s nickel to test “green” cars without disclosing the manufacturers’ contribution to his reports or carbon footprint. 

The cynicism is warranted. The powerplant installed in this belle of the enviro-ball Tahoe hybrid begins with a 6.0-liter V8. GM opted to graft its hybrid system onto a motor that’s substantially larger (e.g. thirstier) than either the 4.8 or 5.3-liter conventional motors used in other Tahoes.  Attach 400 pounds of batteries to this mammoth mill, and the resulting ecotank offers no improvement in highway fuel economy and slightly less towing capacity over the old-fashioned dino burner.

Employing a gasser 25 percent larger than the norm– instead of deploying a lighter motor of smaller displacement– only to weigh it down with nickel metal hydride, seems a lot more mean than green. Yet with battery acid on tap, apparently all is forgiven.

To be fair, not all of the runners-up deserve a slam. Both the Nissan Altima Hybrid and the Mazda Tribute Hybrid accomplish their missions: delivering relatively low emissions and strong fuel economy relative to their respective classes. If you want four-wheeled fodder for a general rant against gasoline-battery marriages, you won’t find it here.

Still, there’s no getting around it: this award is meant to be about “moving the bar forward” in the noble pursuit of slicing America’s overall fuel consumption through consumer choice. Unfortunately, the prize has delivered a less laudable lesson: how ecology-as-pop-culture can produce sub-optimal results. 

The recurring theme of the awards presentation: sacrifice is wholly unnecessary. But the belief that one can pilot a big block V8 for a grocery run while doing the planet a favor is just as absurd as it sounds. Irrespective of where you shake out on matters environmental, the message of burn-it-big-but-with-batteries is overtly hypocritical, an idea worthy of a spin-crazed carmaker, not an [alleged] environmental crusader.

For the majority of those with a desire to save fuel, swapping your ride for a smaller car remains the obvious and most effective solution.   

Once again, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman has addressed automotive issues. This time, Friedman weighs-in on the ultra-cheap car being posited for the rapidly-growing Indian market. The gist of Friedman’s proposal: tax the stuffing out of the cheap car and put the money into mass-transit. Like most of Friedman’s auto-related rants, this one combines a handful of valid points, a couple of keen observations, a soupcon of knee-jerk utopianism and enough muddled thinking to make it impossible to support his views.

Like most Western intellectuals familiar with (if not actual users of) their home town public transportation systems, Friedman believes government has a right (if not an obligation) to manipulate urban transportation patterns for its citizen’s well-being. If these pro-mass transit thinkers harbored any doubts about the costs or consequences of this intercession, the prospect of automotive pollution and global warming removed them. 

And so the New York Times scribe surveys India’s chaotic conurbations, imagines adding millions of private vehicles, and concludes that the Indian government should heavily tax cars to prevent this eventuality.

Never mind that taxing cars beyond the reach of the middle class is a fundamentally elitist proposition, reserving personal transportation for the small percentage of India’s “haves.” Preventing India’s urban areas from generating even MORE pollution serves the greater good. Besides, Friedman says that the money will (should?) get plowed back into mass transit, which is better for the middle class– and everyone else– than owning a car. 

Have a look at the picture. Why would any member of India’s middle class want to spend their hard-earned money on a car for commuting? Immobility would limit their ability to earn enough money to pay for the car. So unless a car aids an Indian consumer’s ability to commute, they won’t buy it for that purpose. In other words, congestion creates a natural limit to car ownership. An extra tax is both discriminatory and unnecessary.

Of course, Friedman is presuming that cars = commuting. Given gridlock, perhaps Indians will buy the new, cheaper car for something other than slogging back and forth to employment: commerce, shopping, trips to distant relatives, etc. For these tasks, mass transit is not the ideal solution. If mass transit WAS the answer, people wouldn’t buy a car. This is especially true at the economic margins, where India’s new, inexpensive car will find favor. Would Friedman discourage these sorts of trips for the greater good? Apparently so.

Whether or not you agree with that consequence of Friedman’s call for draconian private automobile taxation, Friedman’s argument fails to consider a key reason why a middle class Indian WOULD opt for a cheap car over mass transit (gridlock be damned).

To assure sufficient rider volumes and maintain political equilibrium, India’s mass transit network is widely affordable. Over six million commuters use the Mumbai Suburban Railway every day; it has the highest passenger density in the world. In a country with an entire class of people called “untouchables,” middle class Indians who have the means to buy the new inexpensive car do not now, nor will they ever, prefer to share mass-transit with tens of thousands of less fortunate souls.

It's not PC to say it, but Friedman’s plan for more Indian mass transit wouldn't keep India’s middle class off the roads. Increasing mass transit will simply increase the number of less wealthy people flooding into urban centers– exponentially. The consequences of this increase are unknown, but given that there are many types of pollution (including human waste), it’s entirely possible that a larger mass transportation system may not be in the environment’s best interest.  

It may pain a writer living in a "first world" country to admit it, but environmental concerns must be always be balanced against economic prosperity– if only because most citizens value the latter more than the former (sorry, that’s the way it is). In that sense it’s worth asking if traffic congestion actually HELPS India. The more urban congestion, the more business and people move away to outlying areas, where prices are cheaper and transportation more efficient. If it works for Atlanta, Houston, LA, London, Paris and Moscow, why wouldn’t– doesn’t it work in India?

Anyway, the whole frame of reference for this debate is seriously off-kilter.

Intellectuals who learned their history in the big city tend to forget that inexpensive personal transportation has the greatest impact outside urban areas. Out past city limits, cars open up an entire world of possibilities and, thus, raise the quality of life. For America’s vast rural population, Henry Ford’s Model T created new economic markets for labor and goods, fostered social mobility, improved public health and increased genetic diversity. By shrinking distances, a cheap Indian car would liberate time that the rural poor could use for more efficient economic endeavor and/or education. 

Any government looking to improve the well-being of its citizenry should think long and hard about raising the “floor” to automobile ownership. As should Tom Friedman.

[You can read Mr. Friedman's column here.] 

When I first picked up Car and Driver’s (C&D) fateful December 2006 issue, I was convinced that the splashy, graphics-heavy revamp sounded the death knell for my favorite buff book. But the resulting reader backlash was so loud I felt sure Ann Arbor’s finest would be scared straight. A plaintive apology followed the editor’s arrogant dismissal of the reader revolt. C&D seemed poised for a revival. Nope. The October 2007 issue isn’t just the lowest point in the mag’s inexorable descent; it’s a dive below the limits of acceptability.

The buff books’ decline is inversely proportionate to digital media’s rise. Why fork over good money for a magazine subscription, endure two-month old editorials and wade through dozens of ads when the web provides fresh, instant and less ad-intrusive content for free? For the mags, there's an obvious answer: an upmarket re-imagining of the paper-based genre, like the UK’s elegant, ballsy evo magazine.

No such luck. Like The Big 2.8, even a precipitous decline in market share and profits hasn’t convinced the powers-that-be at Car and Driver, Road & Track and Motor Trend that there's a pressing need for radical change. The buff book Old Guard eschews brave revolution in favor of gentle evolution. Even worse, they throw poisoned fruit at the web-slingers– even as these digital vanguards saw away the branch upon which they sit.

In C&D’s October review of the Mercedes-Benz CL63 AMG, the editors make their opinion of webheads– their own no less– abundantly clear. “When [the CL63] arrived on Hogback Road, it caused all the web-site interns to run outside and gawk… The rest of the staff wasn’t easily beguiled by the CL63… because the CL600 can do everything the CL63 does without the fanfare and flamboyance of the AMG car.”

Yep, that’s us: tacky, juvenile, given to fleeting fads. But where is the cold-eyed, experience-hardened objectivity of these experts in their own evaluations? Well, as concerns the CL63 vs. CL600 debate, here’s how the pros’ prose goes: “You can’t really go wrong with either, so which would you rather live with?” Thanks, Motor Trend.

On the next page, we see more journalistic brilliance, this time applied to the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Roadster: “…the SLR’s dynamics are hard to love… It’s hard to be smooth with this car. But whaddaya want for a half-million bucks?” I’ll tell you what I want for twelve bucks a year: the occasional negative comment about a car that deserves it.

You won’t find any in the October issue’s “Short Takes.” The executive summary of the Subaru Tribeca’s driving dynamics: “Its fun-to-drive index is low, but its road manners are almost beyond reproach.” And there I was thinking that a low fun-to-drive index equaled middle-of-the-road road manners. The closing paragraph of the Taurus write-up compares the refreshed Five Hundred to the 1985 Taurus, rather than the new car’s current competitors.

The Buick Enclave review quotes a 0 to 60 time of nine seconds, 14 mpg fuel economy and an as-tested price of $43,950. C&D’s conclusion? The Enclave “undercuts the pricing of key competitors: Acura MDX, Lexus RX350, Volvo XC90. And the Enclave measures up well against any of them.” Uh-huh. The intro to that piece damns a New York Times writer for telling GM to build vehicles that people “actually want to buy;” a “dazzling insight,” says C&D. 

C&D’s “Road Test” is a format that usually allows more candor. In this case, the mag reviews the new Volvo C30– a car aimed straight at the MINI– without once describing how it handles in the twisties. “The steering zeroes in on ‘straight down the road’ when you cruise,” they assure us. “Expect understeer,” they elaborate, kind of. Their “Verdict:” it’s “a Swede to be seen with.” As for the Audi S5: “What the Audi brings to the party is a real sense of style… isn’t that what coupes are all about?” Um… what do you think?

Methinks C&D’s increasingly bitter tone stems from the passionate, seasoned, talented auto writers’ need to sacrifice every last shred of journalistic integrity on the altar of diminishing ad revenue. They can’t possibly enjoy it.

To their credit, the October issue does include a well-written comparison of the Dodge Viper and Corvette Z06. It seems clear that as long as the iron involved is sufficiently unattainable to the mere motoring public, C&D can muster its mojo and call a spade a spade.

But that’s not enough to save a magazine that’s gotten too big for its britches. If a car mag can’t be bothered to spill the beans on the sort of cars real-world enthusiasts drive– you know, the lowly souls that might write for a “web-site”– it simply can’t expect to survive.

Brando got fat. Jacko got crazy. And America’s best buff book has lost it. Good night, C&D. Thanks for the memories.

The political right likes to claim that the mainstream press has a liberal bias. These self-appointed media watchdogs see a cadre of left-leaning fascists looking to manipulate popular opinion, to infringe on individual freedom by stripping law-abiding citizens of their God given right to own guns, smoke, pray in public, eat supersized fatty foods and drive gas-guzzling CO2–belching behemoths. In truth, the American press isn’t red, blue, pink or green. It’s yellow.

Once upon a time, journalism was considered a public service. The news media was owned by beneficent potentates; men who cloaked their more obvious commercial enterprises in the sanctimony of servicing our “right to know.” When technology fractured the audience, when news was made to stand on its own, it suddenly became more of what it was all along: a business. 

The news media’s unshackled economic motives have amped-up their insatiable desire to be seen, heard and/or read. To that end they cater to our basest instincts with stories about all sorts of human extremes: fires, fanatics, fatalities and most important of all, anything urgently threatening. 

Even before the news media lost their dignity, they perpetuated pervasive paranoia. My childhood was haunted by visions of nuclear attack, food shortages and dwindling oil supplies. These stories eventually gave way to dark tales of nuclear disaster and Y2K meltdown. 

Thankfully, all of these perceived calamities are still largely theoretical. Food is produced in abundance, oil supplies have grown and Japan and France have demonstrated that nuclear power is safe and the Internet lives! And so new villains have arrived, most prominently terrorists but including the automobile.

While it pains me to even partially vindicate Detroit’s anti-media paranoia, it’s certainly true that automobile manufacturers have been victimized by willfully ignorant, self-righteous muckrakers. As ttac.com contributor Paul Neidermeyer recently recounted, the Chevrolet Corvair and Audi 5000 were both torpedoed by bogus safety concerns perpetuated by self-anointed safety campaigners (Ralph Nader and CBS).

Other popular models have fallen prey to absurd exaggerations of risk, provided without any discussion of context, scientific analysis or mitigating factors. Was the Firestone tire-clad Ford Explorer inherently dangerous? What does that mean anyway? The fact that over half the Explorer rollover deaths involved passengers who didn’t buckle their seat belts escaped the media’s limited attention.

Clearly, this trend has progressed to the point where the news media feels free to demonize the automobile in general, and vilify anyone who dares drive anything other than a [get-out-of-PC-prison-free] hybrid.

How many times does the media use the words “oil addiction” to describe our habit of driving our children to school, commuting to work, buying the things we need to survive and keeping the American economy healthy for ALL of us?

SUVs are regularly portrayed as the sole province of selfish, clueless, amoral Americans. The companies that provide these vehicles are cast as foot-dragging Neanderthals who, ironically enough, cater to their customers’ basest instincts.

Never mind that the news trucks schlepping their high-tech equipment are about as fuel efficient as a Sherman tank, or that the news helicopters that hover over televised tragedy burn more fuel than an entire fleet of Hummers.

And why is it OK to treat a normal, commercially vital activity like driving as if it’s some kind of criminal act? Global warming! And if global warming is the problem, American drivers are the cause. Oh, sorry, did I say “if?" I mean, “because.”

In case you hadn’t noticed, today’s news media never misses an opportunity to remind us of the “fact” that our vehicles’ fossil fuel combustion is creating greenhouse gasses that will hasten an increase in global temperatures that threatens our species’ survival.

Vehicle-induced global warming is a fact because a lot of scientists say it is– even though a large number of reputable scientists say it isn't. Woe betide anyone foolish enough to question global warming in the press; they're served-up as a crank or right wing nutcase.

Ten years from now, after a decade of declining ocean temperatures (as forecast by the National Hurricane Center), we’ll look back and wonder why people bought the paranoid pseudo-reality of global warming. Of course, by then the tragedy industry will have invented some new automobile-related threat to keep us riveted with fear.

Fascination is the key. The news media is afraid to tackle the tough questions relating to our cars because they believe the public is fundamentally stupid. They’re scared that their audience will take one look at a more complicated truth and switch off. If the information gatekeepers don’t simplify issues (e.g. SUVs suck), Americans will lose interest.

I like to think they’re wrong; that drivers can go beyond sound bites to engage in a proper debate on important issues related to our automotive activities. With your help, we’ll find out.

Whenever a new medium appears, it frees the old one to reinvent itself. When TV arrived, radio dropped soap operas, fragmented its audience and developed new formats (e.g. talk radio). Now that the internet’s here, magazines are free to evolve. Only someone forgot to tell the magazines. Take Car and Driver (C&D) and Road & Track (R&T). Someone should. With sinking circulation and disappearing ad dollars, the car mags (and their buff book brethren) are up against the wall. Rather than pursue creative reinvention, their owners have embarked on a by-now-familiar strategy: whoring themselves.  

Automotive News reports that Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. is looking to their recently launched "virtual test drive” (VTD) web feature to generate significant revenue. These multi-media sales spiels now sit above the C&D and R&T’s websites’ fold, inside the third column (normally reserved for in-house editorial). Surfers click on the box to “explore today’s hottest cars and trucks in our new manufacturer sponsored area.” So far, the VTD’s include the Chevy Silverado and the Ford Edge.

Once the pop-up window launches, there’s no further indication that the be-logoed content is editorially compromised. And compromised it is. Host and former race car driver Tommy Kendall showers the vehicles with unadulterated love. Equally damning, Kendall quotes the magazine's editors liberally on the vehicles’ positive aspects– which also appears as published text. For example, we learn that the Silverado’s “bed length is a Goldilocks-esque situation.”

The VTD is a logical replacement for/complement to C&D and R&T’s “Special Advertising Sections.” These manufacturer-sponsored magazines-within-magazines “review” new vehicles using the buff books’ well-established look and feel. In both cases, the publisher is happy to blur the line between independent editorial content and paid-for content dressed up to look like independent editorial content.

Clearly, the VTD is nothing more than another attempt to sell the car mags’ [remaining] editorial credibility to the highest bidder. Hachette Vice President Robert Ames doesn’t see it that way. He defended the virtual test drive by claiming that they don't contradict anything written by the magazines' reviewers. "If the editorial staff has said that the vehicle is overweight, we'll never say it's light," Ames told Automotive News. "We'll focus on other aspects of the vehicle on behalf of the consumer."

Ames’ implication– that the VTD is in the consumer’s best interest– is curious, given that they’re charging the automakers $250k per segment. Any suggestion that the buff books’ advertorials are somehow quarantined behind a Chinese wall seems equally dubious, given Stephan Wilkinson’s revelations about advertisers’ power over Car and Driver's editorial choices.

Actually, it’s worse than that. Next week, Hachette Filipacchi Media’s U.S. CEO Jack Kliger will team up with top execs at his dead tree rivals to bring a big ass begging bowl to Detroit automakers. Automotive News says the rag tag army of glossy rag providers will call upon no less a personage than Mark LaNeve, General Motors' North American marketing chief. There’s bound to be talk of VTD's and "onserts"– the aforementioned advertorial “brochures” bagged with mags.

There the media mavens will stand, Canute-like, commanding the retreating tide of ad bucks to stop. More accurately, they’ll sell their souls for a percentage of the hundreds of millions of dearly departed dollars fleeing trad mags for the “new media.”

The Devil will demand his due: lay off our products. Those words may not be uttered– until later. There’s no getting around the fact that Car and Driver and Road & Track, as well as Motor Trend and Automobile (which are also launching VTD’s), are sinking deeper and deeper into editorial prostitution.

According to Brock Yates, you can already see it in Car and Driver’s basic structure. Yates told me that Editor-in-Chief Csabe Csere’s reliance on comparison testing allows the magazine to compare “relative merit” with “the occasional mild poke” rather than “take a good hard look at any one car” and “kick its ass when it deserves it.”

As we’ve said before, these are not trivial matters. An automobile is the average American’s second largest purchase, after their house. It accounts for a large amount of their annual expenditure. Its relative safety is a matter of life and death. When car magazines sacrifice their editorial independence on the altar of corporate profit, they clearly demonstrate in whose interests they ultimately act, and it ain’t you.

Of course, all of this is good news for Consumer Reports and independent automotive websites like The Truth About Cars (TTAC).

As TTAC embarks upon its latest reinvention (due within a week), you can rest assured that this website will never violate our readers' trust. You may not like or agree with our opinions, but as long as I remain the site's publisher, advertisers will not shade, color or dictate our editorial choices. By the same token, until and unless the buff books regain their independent voice, they will continue their long slide into mediocrity and irrelevance.

I don’t mean to be [too] snarky, but why is it that whenever Bill Gates deigns to bless the little people with his e-presence, all I can do is stare at his hair? Does he cut it himself? Or is that what happens when you start racking up the billions: you let your looks go to seed and no one dares tell you your hair looks like something an amphetamine crazed Cuts 2000 trainee literally whipped-up on a bad day? I suppose there’s a no degree of separation thing here, as Bill appeared at the NAIAS (IPPI) to tell Alan (who works for Billy) that his Ford products are great and will soon be even greater with Microsoft’s electronics on board. MS WORD! These guys are denial.

You sure do bump into a celebrity or two whilst taking laps of the COBO show floor– especially if you’re dorky enough to lavish that most post modern of sobriquets on auto scribes. Why, look! It’s Consumer Reports’ David Champion. There’s Automobile Magazine’s Robert Cumberford and Jean Jennings. AutoWeek’s Dutch Mandel is hard at work. Click and Clack are right on track. I make it a point to shake everyone’s hand just so I can watch clock their face when I tell them I work for The Truth About Cars. (FYI: it’s something between blissful ignorance and bemused revulsion.)

I also spot Simon Cox, the GM designer responsible for the 750hp Caddy Cien from ‘02; a bad ass coupe so perfectly proportioned and cab-forward thinking that Cadillac couldn’t build it because Miami condo loads of tassel loafered DCTSTSXLRSRX owners would have died of embarrassment. Needless to say, Cox sports the sina qua non of trendy art school grads: oddly-shaped eyeglasses. It’s true. Spot a pair of frames that appear to have been fashioned by delirium tremoned hands out of a wire clothes hanger and chances are better than excellent the nose holding them aloft belongs to a guy who draws cars for a living. Martian-themed footwear is another dead giveaway.

Guess what? I found an automaker whose products you should rush out and buy. For breakfast, Mercedes proffered chocolate-and-mint yogurt shooters, savory filled croissants, proscuitto and mascarpone frittatas with fire roasted peppers, and mixed berries and cream. I rested rink side, inhaling the heady aroma of fresh-cut roses, watching figure skaters avoid being crushed beneath the all-season technology underpinning Stuttgart's latest steamroller, waiting for the waitress to bring me my ill-gotten grub. Surprisingly, there wasn’t a single beach towel on a single seat.

SMART, a brand born for blonde college co-eds, was populated by product specialists no older than my latest ATM withdrawal who shared their enthusiasm with such sincerity that it’s almost as if they weren’t paid actors. Between them and the PR kids [Tony] hawking Scion, the auto industry has cornered the market on marketing to the youth market. I had two questions for MINI’s mousketeers: what the hell was MINI thinking when they equipped the new Cooper S with a non-functional hood scoop? And: What in God’s name was MINI thinking when they equipped the new Cooper S with a non-functional hood scoop?

After that automotive koan was met with uncomprehending silence (and a polite smile), I took a moment to pause and reflect on the fact that the Porsche GT3 that I want to own already owns me. That and the fact that if you say "Wendelin Weideking" enough times the sound will eventually lull you into a meditative trance of sufficient depth to realize that Audi shouldn't be building a mid-engined 911 rival with the Toyota FJ Cruiser's blind spot– unless it makes shed loads of money like the Cayenne.

The Dark Lords of DCX chose to provide box lunches to the assembled throngs. The hand-out was timed to coincide with the reveal of the company’s 318th Jeep concept vehicle since purchasing the brand along with the corresponding Chrysler dregs. Yep, one fun, imaginative Jeep flight of fancy after another. And what do they bring to market?  The Compass. Talk about indigestion.

With so much free bottled water, beer, coffee, juice, beer, fruit smoothies and beer on tap, journalists soon learned the lay of the land restroom-wise. In this I was no different. Thankfully, my non-Viper snake shakeage (yes I’m a boy named Lyn) was finished in time to witness Cadillac win the Now I Know Why I Bothered to Come Award. A string quartet segued into a duo of violin-sawing rappers followed by what seems to be the entire CTS project team getting up to wax poetic about their efforts. Despite all that, the new and improved, vitamin-fortified, rich ‘n creamy CTS is a hit.

Get this: the one time GM Car Czar Maximum Bob Lutz’s BS could plausibly intersect with reality and the guy’s off burning jet fuel somewhere. Gates should give Lutz a new Outlook. Or is that the other way round?

Greetings sports fans and all ships at sea! It’s time once again for a frolic amid The Land of New Car Introductions at the North American International Auto Show’s Press Preview Days. Or, as it’s more commonly known to us professional journalists: Free Food, Booze, and Press Kits You Can Unload on eBay Day. Yes, I’m excited to return to the city of Detroit (motto: When Hell Freezes Over) to take part in this three-day extravaganza of extravagance. Hacks from all over the world are joining me to witness the world's largest automakers' blitz of glitz, where the car’s the star and they've got whozits and whatzits galore. I’ll have an Amstel Light, please.

Allow me to briefly describe the stage at this stage, a few days prior to that fateful moment when Cobo's doors fling open to the teeming throngs of beer-swilling punters who, though forgotten by all involved, actually pay for this festival of wretched excess. In a word, it's cool. Cynic that I am, I can’t deny it: an auto show filled with new metal surrounded by showbizzy pizzazz and populated by an army of genetically pristine supermodels is always going to have a certain "this is way trendier than my cubicle" appeal. Add a bit of behind-the-scenes peekery and a chance to see J Mays' hairstyle of the moment and you have the makings of something… icy hot.

Thankfully, we in the electronic press (motto: Deadlines Are So Five Minutes Ago) are spared the slaughter pen atmosphere the civilian population must endure when they get their turn to say "my cousin's got one of them" and "who the Hell'd buy that thing?" Still, there are approx. 6,000 journos, photogs and random dignos scooting around doing business like nobody’s business. So it’s not exactly a solitary stroll on a deserted beach (at least once you get away from the Mercury stand). And thank you for wearing that floral deodorant my elegant European friend.

Although full-time prep began several weeks ago, the show displays, lights, and carpeting are nowhere near complete. All blame to the press conferences and corresponding reveals; they gotta make room for the poobah's teleprompters, several dozen risers for the motion camera [sickness] boys and 17 folding chairs for the rest of us. Once each program is finished, we hacks shuffle off to the next Really Important and Exciting World Premiere and Urgent Corporate Announcement, and the elves appear to magically whisk the mishegos away. Chain smoking elves. With hairy backs.

Oh look, up on the stand: it’s Chrysler’s Tom LaSorda with celebrity chef Bobby Flay! Over the last few years, DCX has build a rep for “clever” and “fun” presentations of uh, what was that car again? They crashed something through a glass window, produced a take-off on ‘50s Ozzie ‘n Harriet sitcoms (how's that for a demographic?), imported the “That thing got a Hemi” dude to walk around a car asking, “That thing got a Hemi?” and trained a herd of African elephants to crush a panel van flat. 

Today, we were treated to yet another episode of those Wild and Crazy Chrysler Guys. Chef Bobby assembled a three-tier chocolate layer cake as Mr. What Me Worry made endless references to how Chrysler "cooked up" their Hail Mary minivan. This routine (in every sense of the word) went on for the longest 15 minutes in human history. Twelve thousand soon-to-be- bloodshot media eyes glazed over like the day-old donuts festering in the media lounge. Marketing department personnel get paid with checks that end in many zeros to think of these half-baked ideas. Remember that when you or someone you know is considering a college major.

Speaking of food, Ford is toast. In years past, The Blue Oval has been nothing short of profilgate in the vital area of wining and dining those of us who scrutinize and criticize their every bold and not-so-bold move. Be it a full-blown sushi luncheon to accompany a Mazda conference (which left me longing for a fugu mercy killing), or an artery-clogging English breakfast enjoyed whilst a new Land Rover pirouetted out from under a giant silk hankie, The House of Henry always spent money on us scribes as if we were the human equivalent of Jaguar. Today? I couldn't even find a cracker. Obviously, desperate times call for desperate measures. So I sent an email to FoMoCo's $35m Man:

Dear Al:

I’m sorry for dissing (it is "dissing" isn't it?) the Escort ZX-2. I’ll happily purchase the first new one I can find. Just please give me back my fresh berry and brandy crepes.

Love,

Csaba Csere

PS Can we compare the Fusion to the Camry now?

Pop quiz. “What do a Chrysler Cirrus, Chevrolet Blazer, Plymouth Acclaim and Ford Expedition have in common?” Did you say “none of them would ever tempt a pistonhead?” True enough, but not correct. “None of them ever dented the US sales charts”? Another good guess, but still incorrect. And the answer is: all of these vehicles have received the “North American Car (or Truck) of the Year” award. Yes, it’s that time of year again. Time for the automotive media to prove that indiscretion is the worst part of valor. 

Here they come: the Motor Trend Car of the Year, 10Best, North American Car of the Year, International Car of the Year (Auto, Autocar, Stern, L'Automobile, etc.), World Car of the Year, Family Car of the Year, Urban Wheel Awards Car of the Year, Green Car of the Year and (for all I know) Polydactylic Cat Owners Car of the Year award. Multiply most of these by three (to include truck and SUV awards) then add in various sub-awards, and you’ve got enough gongs to satisfy the world’s monasteries for a decade.

As the list of past winners indicates, the value of these accolades is entirely dubious. Their methodology is usually vague, subjective and debatable. In many cases, the fine print isn’t even available for public (or Michael Karesh’s) scrutiny. One thing is for sure: an award doesn’t mean that a “Car of the Year” (COTY) is the best car on the road that year. Remember: a car only merits COTY consideration if it’s new or substantially changed for that year. How new? Many juries test cars that aren’t even on the market.

The candidates for the 2007 North American Car of the Year and North American Truck of the Year (NACOTY and NATOTY) awards were announced on Wednesday. In addition to sterling examples of automotive engineering and cutting edge design like the Dodge Caliber and Chevrolet Suburban, the awards’ crack team of automotive journalists is busy testing the as-yet-unreleased Ford Edge, GMC Acadia and Chrysler Sebring. This practice of testing pre-production models kills any hope that the panelists are testing “real” cars (i.e. press cars that weren’t carefully prepared by their manufacturers). 

You’d be forgiven for thinking COTY awards are little more than a gift to car advertisers, who provide a self-appointed number of “elite” journalists with priority access to press cars, and then co-promote a new product with an old publication. It’s certainly an excellent excuse for carmakers like Renault (Alliance), Chevrolet (Citation), Plymouth (RIP, Volare) and Ford (Probe) to sell cars by touting their COTY award like they’d won the Nobel Prize.

If not pissing off your paymasters is the priority, it is perhaps significant that Car and Driver’s 2006 “10Best” awards considered 52 cars in new categories, including “Best Luxury Sports Car,” “Best Sports Coupe,” “Best Roadster,” “Best Sports Car” and “Best Muscle Car.” Perhaps C&D hopes persnickety pistonheads will spend so much time debating which car belongs in what category they’ll be too tired to dispute the winners.

To their credit, Car and Drivel Driver pits each year’s contenders against last year’s winners, and names the winner of that contest one of their 10Best. The concept is sound in theory, but flawed in execution. All cars are made to a price. When you’re comparing a vehicle that costs $15k to one costing $45k, proclaiming that one is “better” than the other is an inherently flawed judgment. To muffle accusations of price bias, C&D attempts to spread their selections across the price spectrum. In the process, they make the selection process even more arbitrary and artificial.

Anyway, I believe that any award purporting to name the best of anything for any given year should have stringent selection criteria; at least a bit more than “it’s the new kid on the block and we really like it a lot and we know what we’re talking about because we’re professional car journalists.”  In the interests of fairness, and in direct contradiction to The Truth About Cars’ last two Cars of the Year (chosen by RF according to the above methodology), here’s how it should be done:

The judging should include a variety of published factors like performance, engineering, fuel economy, suitability to task for which they were designed, build quality, value for money and ergonomics. To qualify for consideration, a vehicle would have to achieve a minimum score. To win, it would have to be at the top of the ranking. Oh, and the panel should include both car journalists and non-professional pistonheads (that’s you).

I’ve never heard anyone say they bought a car because it received a Car of the Year award. That’s because no media outlet has the cojones (and/or money) to base awards strictly on merit– rather than the intersecting interests of publication and producer. Until then, we’ll keep getting meaningless hyperbole about meaningless awards.

After more than two years of free content, The Truth About Cars is about to accept advertising– despite the publisher’s apprehension about advertising’s corrosive effect on editorial independence. It’s an understandable concern. Browse the auto "reviews" in your local daily newspaper. In the main, they consist of regurgitated press releases juxtaposed with stock photos, buried amongst dealer ads. The monthly automotive “buff books” claim they’re above such compromise. They maintain that they provide objective assessments of their test subjects. At the risk of throwing stones from a house about to add a greenhouse, can any publication that features more advertisements than content be objective?

Car and Driver, Road & Track, Automobile, Motor Trend and the rest of the magazines further down the car mag food chain are all supported by advertising. Unless a magazine is subsidized by a non-profit organization (e.g. Consumer Reports) or charges an exorbitant price per issue, it can’t survive without advertising. Few readers have problems with ads per se; they consider them wallpaper. But when the ads outweigh the content, questions begin to arise about who’s calling the editorial shots. Put a one or two-page ad for a new car in the middle of a glowing review of the same and those suspicions can easily turn to full-scale paranoia. Sneak in a multi-page "special advertising section" formatted to look and read like the rest of the magazine and credibility stretches to breaking point.

The stakes are certainly high enough to tempt an ad exec to mount an assault on his or her employer’s Chinese walls; advertising brings the buff books seriously big bucks. A full page ad in Car and Driver’s flimsy pages currently ranges from $102k to $157k. An inside or back cover will set a sponsor back between $182k and $198k. According to Folio magazine, Car and Driver raked in over $104m in ad revenue in the first half of ‘05, a figure that’s 26% higher than the same period in ‘04. The figures for the first half of 2006 will likely be even higher.  With revenues like that, it’s no wonder the average automotive publication’s pages are dominated by advertising. Here are the stats for January–July 2006:

Motor Trend: 693.05 (99 ad pages/month)

Car and Driver: 622.20 (89 ad pages/month)

Road & Track: 622.18 (89 ad pages/month).

These three leading automotive publications average about 175 total pages per issue. And that means your favorite buff book is approximately 55% advertising. The remaining 45% includes photos, page headers, indices and lots of other things that an uncharitable reader might call filler.  By the time you factor those items from the equation you’re lucky if 30% of the magazine is anything particularly useful. Does this unequal balance between editorial and advertising cause any uneasiness about editorial independence amongst the magazine’s publishers? Nope. Motor Trend’s publisher has publicly bragged about the fact that his publication has the highest advertising content in its market segment.

Less objectively, the bathroom has become a fitting location to peruse these publications, given the amount of crap they contain. I’ve read the magazines listed above since I was 12.  I’ve watched them slide steadily into editorial abulia. While the ads have flourished like kudzu on horse manure, articles have become shorter and shallower (usually with more photos than text), and the road tests now read more like product endorsements than automotive reviews.

Perhaps it’s coincidental that this decline parallels the magazines’ increased ad revenues. Perhaps not. When you consider just how far down the slippery slope of compromise these publications have slid, you have to wonder what kind of incestuous relationships exists between the publishers and their ad agencies. Whether or not shady deals go down in ad execs’ cubicles, it’s clear that journalistic integrity isn’t their driving force any more.

The same disease has infected cyberland. While you expect auto magazines’ web sites to reflect their print counterpart’s pattern, many “independent” automotive sites are now dominated by advertising. Some of the ads are extremely clever/morally reprehensible: you think you’re getting objective information when you’re actually reading a page sponsored by a manufacturer. Only a handful of automotive web sites have the integrity to label ads clearly or reveal the perks they receive from the automakers whose products they’re reviewing.

TTAC publisher Robert Farago claims that the same editorial compromise will never occur here. To his credit (or discredit), Farago is a zealot who understands exactly what’s at stake. He’s publicly committed to maintaining this website’s editorial independence at all costs. Of course, the proof of the pudding is in the reading. Over the next few months you’ll be able to make your own determination: will TTAC keep its edge when it transforms from an amateur hobby to professional enterprise? Watch this space… 

I’m not a big fan of segregation.  Obviously, US car culture splits into distinct niches: hot rodders, low-riders, urban gangstas, tuners, etc.  Equally obvious, these niches attract adherents from specific ethnic groups.  But just as communities throughout my home state meet down at the markets as they root around for fresh ingredients for their ethnic cuisine, there is an element of respect and inter-mingling between these petrol-powered fraternities.  Anyway, I don’t get the male – female automotive divide.  I seriously doubt that there’s a female automotive perspective– even when it comes to child safety and minivanning.  So when I saw a press release about a new female-oriented automotive website, I decided to do what it said on the tin: ask Patty.  Turns out “Patty” is a male invention and the company producing the website makes its money sensitizing dealers to “women’s needs.”  I quizzed Jody Devere, President of www.askpatty.com, about the statistical justification for the segregation.        

For decades, Consumer Reports has been the American automobile buyer’s primary source for vehicle reliability information.  Tens of millions of highly-educated, independent-minded people have made their car purchase based on a brace of red dots.  While I don’t care for the dots– they’re a blunt instrument that can hide as much information as they convey– I’ve always assumed that Consumer Reports’ (CR) underlying data was solid.  And then I took their survey…

Of the survey’s 19 questions, only one collects the data that's ultimately responsible for Consumer Reports' final, all-important reliability dots: question number 13. 

“If you had any problems with your car in the last year (April 1, 2005 through March 31, 2006) that you considered SERIOUS because of cost, failure, safety or downtime, click the appropriate box(es) for each car.  INCLUDE problems covered by warranty.  DO NOT INCLUDE 1) problems resulting from accident damage; or 2) replacement of normal maintenance items (brake pads, batteries, mufflers) unless they were replaced much sooner or more often than expected.”

CR’s form then lists the car’s major systems, with a simple checkbox next to each.  That means that multiple problems with a single system, such as ongoing hassles with a car’s electrics, count once.  Equally troubling, respondents are supposed to remember a car problem that may have occurred over a year ago.  They also need to remember whether incidents near the cutoff happened in March or April.  Respondents that err on the safe side and report problems that might have happened within the timeframe, and do this year after year, are likely to report some problems twice. 

There's an even more profound methodological iceberg dead ahead.  CR’s dots signal “SERIOUS” problems [note the caps], yet never defines the term. I’ve always wondered how CR staffers decided whether a problem is “serious” enough to include in their survey.  They don’t.  CR’s question 13 requires that individual respondents make the call, based on “cost, failure, safety or downtime,” or other entirely subjective criteria.

This is a buck that should not be passed. Anyone with a significant other knows that two people hardly ever agree on what constitutes a “serious” problem.  As CR does not provides clear guidelines as to which problems qualify as SERIOUS and which do not, the resulting data is not reliable.  Would it be so hard for CR to provide a definition of that includes a dollar amount or the number of days out of service? Apparently so.

Without unambiguous guidelines, extraneous influences intrude.  First, there’s the respondent’s general opinion of the car.  Things gone right can ameliorate things gone wrong.  Why else would some people keeping buying those pricey “black dot” jobs?  Second, the reliability of cars past shapes consumers’ expectations.  If the participant’s previous car lost a transmission, then a bad alternator may not seem so SERIOUS.  Unless the current car is the same brand, and the participant is starting to feel twice fooled.  Then a burned-out turn signal may seem SERIOUS.  And third, if the dealer was smart enough to play nice, maybe kicking in a free loaner, then a SERIOUS problem will seem less severe.  

Finally, we come to the part of the question which cautions that replacement of “normal maintenance items” shouldn’t be reported “unless they were replaced much sooner or more often than expected.”  This instruction lumps maintenance and repair items together, with no way for CR’s analysts to separate the data later (should they be so ambitious).  And, once again, the respondent must define terms, deciding what items count as “normal” and assess the gap between their expectations and reality (usually called irony).  

If CR is going to include wear items, it should specify how long they should last.  But how long should brake pads last?  Expectations are going to vary.  A lot.   Brake pad life is heavily affected by driving style, driving conditions, a tire shop’s financial goals and other factors that have nothing to do with reliability.  And batteries?  How many times were the lights left on?  How much crud has been allowed to build up around the terminals?  Asking average car owners to gauge their vehicle’s parts wear against an entirely subjective ideal does not a scientific study make.  If they really want to know about brake pads and batteries, they should at least ask about them separately, to keep the nasty things from contaminating the entire data set. And provide some guidelines.

I’m no triskaidekaphobic.  But Consumer Reports’ question 13 does nothing to instill confidence in their reliability ratings, and much to cast doubt on their value. Respondents and readers need a more scientific and, ultimately, more useful guide to automotive reliability.  Until CR’s survey undergoes a major overhaul, readers will be misled and manufacturers won’t have the valuable feedback they need to make genuine improvements.

[Michael Karesh operates www.truedelta.com , a vehicle reliability and price comparison site.] 

Remember Joe Isuzu?  In the late 80’s, the brand’s spokesman was an actor (David Leisure) playing a pathological liar who’d say anything to sell an Isuzu.  He claimed the Trooper could carry “a symphony orchestra” or “hold every book in the Library of Congress.”  The Impulse was “faster than a [catches a speeding bullet in his teeth]… well, you know.”  While Joe’s commercials-– and for that matter, the Isuzu brand– are busy fading from the American automotive landscape, his spirit lives on.  The main difference between Joe and no-Joe car ads: today's disclaimers are smaller.  You have my word on it.   

On second thought, look for yourself.  Most automobile commercials include a small disclaimer like “closed course,” “professional driver,” “do not attempt” or some other CYA statement mandated by the company’s legal department.  It’s there to protect them against ambulance chasers waiting for a buyer to injure themselves or (preferably) die when they try to make their vehicle do what it did in the commercial– even if that’s just driving around a corner.  You have to wonder about a world where companies showcase an SUV driving off-road, or a sports car zooming through a road course, then feel obliged to tell the buyer “do not attempt” to do the same.  Just what are we supposed to do with these vehicles?   

The TV commercials for the new Mercedes GL-class are probably the best/worst example.  The ads show the Alabama-built off-roader shrugging off the impact of a crash test sled, towing more than a Peterbilt can handle, hauling an entire vacation home full of stuff and tackling a slalom course so fast it sets the cones on fire (actually my first impression was the brakes were overheating so badly they ignited the cones).  All this wouldn’t be too bad if it was presented Joe Isuzu-style, with humorous disclaimers.  Instead, the word “fictionalization” appears in letters small enough to qualify as a DMV eye test, flashing by so fast it could serve as an Evelyn Wood final exam.   

Autodisclaimermania reminds of a five-year old who lies about breaking a lamp but thinks it’s OK (and he won’t be caught) because his fingers were crossed.  When it comes to portraying extreme performance capabilities that might not actually be, you know, possible, or, equally worrying, destroying the vehicle involved in the display, truck ads are particularly notable offenders.  Could someone explain what “underbody digitally modified” meant in the Ford truck ad showing an F-150 crushed between two bulldozers?  Did the frame crumple like a beer can against a frat boy’s forehead?  Why won’t they show us what really happened?  Or tell us they actually crushed four trucks to make that commercial?   

Then there’s a special category of ads operating so far outside the realm of reality they should be classified as novelization.  These ads try to sell us on a vehicle’s ability to cater to/create a particular “lifestyle,” or seek to fill us with warm fuzzies (WF) for a company building vehicles that can’t stand evaluation on their own or relative merits.  Here’s a simple question: how many Americans actually own a kayak?  How many go rock climbing?  Not as many as own SUV’s.  But that doesn’t stop their manufacturers from selling their lumbering land yachts as gateways to the great outdoors.  Nissan may urge potential owners to “tell better stories,” but it would be hard come up with more imaginative fiction that their lifestyle vignettes.  

The poster child for the WF concept is Ford’s “Bold Moves” campaign.  The Coca-Cola style ads show a quick cut montage of bold Americans doing courageous and noble things– from a teenager getting his first driver's license to a woman with breast cancer entering the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation's Race for the Cure.  So… where are the cars?  They don’t appear until the ad’s closing seconds.  What does that tell us about Ford vehicles?  Either a great deal (Ford’s ethics, spirit and community service) or nothing (), depending on whether or not you got paid to throw around words like “target demographic.”  

Of course, Ford’s not the only one inviting customers to share their highly selective alternate reality.  Toyota touts their “hybrid synergy” but neglects to mention its profitable flotilla of gas-guzzling Tundras and Sequoias.  GM brags how many of its cars get better than 30 MPG in highway driving, but fails to disclose that their whips are a lot less efficient around town, and that their overall fleet hews closely to the Corporate Average Fuel Economy legislation.  (Unlike BMW.)  

You have to wonder who the car makers and their advertising lackeys think they’re fooling.  They aren’t fooling me and I doubt they’re fooling you.  The truth is they, like Joe Isuzu, they are only fooling themselves.  And if I’m lying, may lightning strike my computer.

The text after the jump appeared on Karl Brauer's blog "Karl on Cars" on Edmund's Inside Line.  I asked Mr. Brauer for permission to publish it here, without editing or commentary.  Nothing.  (The same response I received when I asked Karl to email me Edmunds' policy on press junkets and public disclosure thereof.) So, under the "fair use" principle, I'm publishing it anyway.  If Edmunds takes TTAC to court, I'll counter-sue for libel and send a note to the IRS asking about the tax implications of junketeering.  If Edmunds sends an email asking TTAC to remove this excerpt, I'll take this post down and publish the email. Anyway, Edmunds may have a million visitors [multiplied exponentially], but at least we have transparency, integrity and a spell-checker. 

Yada Yada Yada… "But one dark side to the "new media" is that anyone with an Internet address can badge themselves an "automotive authority" and subsequently expect the industry (and consumers) to take notice. After eight years at Edmunds I have a keen perspective on how hard it can be to convince the world you aren't just a punk kid with servers in your basement and a desire to get free test drives in new cars. In my case I was a punk kid with LOTS of servers and a desire to get free test drives…but I also wanted to provide accurate consumer information regarding those test drives to over one million visitors a month. That was in 1998, and our monthly visitor numbers are exponentially higher, as is the respect/cooperation we get from the manufacturers.

It wasn't always an easy journey, and I can relate to those publications still trying to achieve legitimacy in this ever-growing space. But I am also annoyed by those publications that break some basic rules of automotive journalism:

1. They target the established guys (like us) with all the usual "you've sold out and are owned by the manufacturers" crap. The most common battle cry is "the manufacturers pay for you to travel somewhere and drive their cars, so you obviously can't write a non-biased report." I think they mistakenly believe that by making such claims they can short-cut the process of becoming established themselves. Hate to rain on your parade guys, but there's only one way to make this trip — provide consistent, high quality automotive journalism over an extended time period (and I'm not talking a weekend, or month or even a year). Do that and the audience will come, followed shortly by respect from the rest of the industry.

2. They go after the manufacturers with false claims of influence to justify their own access to press vehicles. This usually comes in the form of lying about traffic numbers. And yes, I banged on the OEs to get press vehicle access over the years. Hell, I still do, as does everyone else in this space. Trying to get the hottest vehicles as soon as possible is part and parcel of being an automotive journalist. The difference here is that — once you're established — you can accurately claim people will be influenced by your road test content, and thus it's in the OE's best interest to be represented on your site. I've seen plenty of indigant editors out there who refuse to divulge monthly traffic numbers but insist they represent a core automotive Web site. Now why doesn't that behavior pass the smell test? The hypocrysy is also pretty hilarious. Do you think these guys would actually turn down a press event if they once got to the level of actually being invited? Me either.

3. When they don't get their way, they publicly trash said manufacturers and/or established publications. Apparently these guys feel that the best way to inform the automotive consumer/enthusiast is to whine about how nobody pays them any attention. Hey, as an automotive junkie you know what I really want to read about? How about 1,000 words on why manufacturer XYZ is a jerk because they won't give publication PDQ any cars? That's just fascinating stuff, let me tell you. Sure, we may have a First Drive on the Shelby GT500 and Acura RDX going up live tomorrow, but in the end we just can't compete against the ravings of an angry editor at a publication with 800 readers, now can we? Correction — after that latest rant they are down to 728 readers, and dropping fast…

Remember guys — the reader comes first. If you've got a problem with a manufacturer, deal with that manufacturer and spare your audience all the whining. Is there a specific publication I'm talking about here? Yes, there is. But there's no way I'm going to give them any additional publicity, so you'll all have to guess which one. Or maybe you don't care enough to guess (I'm hoping for the latter, as it further suggests a "not-a-moment-too-soon" death for this "illustrious" electronic rag)."

http://blogs.edmunds.com/karl/.ee91b8c

Another year, another J.D. Power survey. Since the non-profit Consumer Reports organization prohibits carmakers from using its ratings in their ads, “ranked highest in initial quality by J.D. Power and Associates” should start flooding the airwaves and Internet any minute now, with print sure to follow. But does all of this noise signify anything? Should those seeking trouble-free wheels be sure to buy one of J.D.’s winners? Hardly.

First, note the “initial” that qualifies “quality.” Power surveys car owners on “problems” encountered within their first 90 days of ownership. Most people understand that a car that’s reliable for 90 days isn’t necessarily reliable beyond that. But there’s a bigger issue. J.D. Power’s IQS has been redesigned (for the second time) to encompass a larger number of potential defects. And the more the IQS includes, the less it measures what most people want to know: vehicle reliability.

The previous redesign doubled the average number of reported problems per car by extending the IQS beyond defects (that can be fixed) to designed-in annoyances (that must be endured). For example, cupholder dissatisfaction famously slammed MINI’s score. The 2006 IQS report takes a step in the right direction by including subscores for "design quality" and "production quality." Combining two very different elements into a single score makes it unclear what the number represents. Yet this score receives 99 percent of the press coverage and 100 percent of the ad citations.

If you compare the rankings based on production quality alone, the brands’ relative positions change dramatically. BMW bounds 24 places to third; Buick jumps 14 to eighth; MINI ascends 13 to 16th; Mercedes-Benz climbs nine also to 16th; Subaru also gains nine to 19th. At the same time, Dodge drops eight to 27th; GMC plummets 13 rungs to 22nd; Nissan plunges ten, also to 22nd. Eight others change position by at least five slots. These include Chrysler, which shares many models with Dodge yet moves up five places, to fifth. Out of 37 brands, 16 rankings are heavily affected by the inclusion of design quality.

Beyond the cloudiness of the revised methodology, the way the results are reported and spun continues to put too much emphasis on relative rankings. In fact, absolute differences are often minuscule. Looking at defect rates alone, 22 out of 37 brands fall within one-tenth of a Problem per Car (PPC) of the 0.64 average. Thirty of 37 brands fall within two-tenths. Of the seven beyond this range, only one, Lexus, is on the top, and it only betters the average by 0.22 problems per car.

Stay with me here. The best brand, Lexus, has 0.42 problems per car, while the worst, Isuzu, has 1.10: a best-to-worst difference of 0.68 problems per car. Even this range results from a few especially low-scoring brands. The difference between number three (Toyota) and number 32 (Hummer) is a scant 0.27 problems per car. It’s ironic, since brands at the bottom of the chart receive the least attention in J.D. Power’s press releases. For years they didn’t even publicly release below-average scores.

Put another way, a Toyota compared to a Hummer has a one in four chance of having a single additional problem. Even comparing a car from Isuzu with one from Lexus, only two in three cars will have a single additional problem. What’s more, this additional problem is likely to be the only problem. Folks, we're talking about a single trip to the dealer for a single problem–which you still face nearly even odds of taking if you buy the best brand.

The reason why J.D. Power lumps design quality into the IQS is clear: without it, the differences between brands are rarely worth debating. And the smaller the differences, the less people care about IQS. And the less the pubic cares about IQS, the less automakers will pay to advertise IQS scores, and hire Power consultants to help improve them. This would truly be a problem– for J.D. Power.

J.D. needs to re-think their methodology and reporting. They should keep problems that require repair separate from other issues. Forget the brands, they don’t vary enough. Instead, emphasize model scores. Next, focus less on rankings and who is the best and more on the size of the differences and who is within spitting distance of the best. Finally, J.D. Power needs to shift their emphasis away from “initial quality” towards long-term durability. Manufacturers won’t like that a longer-term study keeps new models off J.D.-branded consumer radar, but anything less is, well, less.

Heck, J.D. Power might even rake in more cash this way. Anyone reasonably near the top—and not just those at the top—could advertise “ranked good enough in quality that you should focus on other criteria by J.D. Power and Associates.” No, it’s not punchy. Just the truth.

[Michael Karesh operates www.truedelta.com, a vehicle reliability and price comparison site.]