J.D Powers Reliability vs. Interweb Forum Talk

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doitmyself

doitmyself

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I'm starting to research replacement vehicles for our ailing 9 year old base model, 4 cyl. Caravan. I need some utility function for my hobby and a higher seat position makes entry easier for my wife with disabilities. The Caravan is/was perfect for our needs.

I don't like the current mini vans and have been looking at 2wd SUVs: Jeep Patriot, Subie Forester (AWD), Escape, CRV,Rav4.

At JD Powers the CRV stands out for quality/reliability while the rest are pretty much average or worse.

When I go to enthusiast forums, I find glaring problems with most of these:
Patriot: premature ball joint failure.
Forester: 38 page thread on high oil consumption of new FB25 engine. SHOCKING!
Escape: Previous generation - weak transmission, learned at BITOG.
Rav4: Premature water pump failures. $$$ repair.

FINALLY, MY QUESTION! How does one interpret the interweb forums vs. JD Powers and other reliability data?

Do the forum threads just reflect a tiny % that post in anger? Or, do these threads reflect problems to sway a person away from purchase? Recently at BITOG there was a thread about the Pentastar head problems that comes to mind.

Here's the Forester thread: http://www.subaruforester.org/vbulletin/f183/2011-burning-lot-oil-96178/ where owners are being told by Subaru USA that 1 qt. down in 1,200 miles on relatively new engines is o.k. .
 
Forums, especially ones directed at the car itself are going to have a higher concentration of the issue.

For example, I have a 2000 Jeep Cherokee. They are known for cracking their heads. Knock on wood, mine hasn't ... and no one I know of that has a 1999-02 WJ, 2000-2002 Wrangler or 2000-2001 Cherokee has had the problem. But, if you go on a jeep forum they will tell you that the head is going to crack, kill you and your family and all of your acquaintances
 
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The CRV has been getting GOOD reports for a number of years. Since these vehicles are all based on some platform or another the good reports ought to carry over to and from whatever platform the CRV running gear is common with. Toyota gets good ratings as well, although 4WD adds a bit of complexity to the mix for both. My own personal opinion about the Subaru layout is that I see no practical advantage to the flat 4 or 6 and some disadvantages, such as twice as many head gaskets to fail. The engine IS an advantage from a center of gravity aspect in the new sports car Subaru and Toyota produce as a joint venture, but for an SUV?
One of the Toyotas in my "fleet" which has the same basic engine as the older RAV has had one water pump in 300 thousand miles, and that was a precaution with a timing belt change.
Why not look for a Toyota or Honda minivan, or a Hyundai van. The Hyundai is not a bad package.
 
Funny, but I don't know of anybody that has bad a head gasket failure in a Subaru.

And never read on one when I used to frequent SIDC and UKlegacy forum.

Haven't heard many problems with the CR-V though, BiL has had a 2.2 '03 CR-V for a year or so and apart from lack of maintenance by previous owner it has had no significant issues.

And a mate just bought an '07 CR-V with the 2.2 diesel lump and he is very happy with that.
 
Take a look at published recalls and TSBs for the models you're researching. If these records align with the complaints, then the forums are on to something, if not then it's being blown out of proportion.

In general, I think that model specific forums tend to blow problems out of proportion. For example if you visit Mazda 3 forum, you would think that engines are dropping like flies, but what people posting these problems "forget" to mention is the maintenance or oil level. When I used to visit these forums and questioned the oil level or known oil consumption I never got a straight answer.

I think a good general opinion can be sampled on general car forums, like this one. I posted a question about Ford Focus here and got very good responses with great info, just be prepared that you may not hear what you want to hear.
 
The web doesn't tend to attract with people without problems.

Folks join the forum for a particular vehicle because they are looking for the answer to some problem...so, the vehicles with problems are over-represented.

The web is useful for identifying common issues/areas, but not useful for determining likelihood...
 
Forums are usually where people go WHEN they have a problem. Googling your vehicle with a problem usually directs you to a specific forum where someone else has had the same problem.

Be careful reading them as you can pretty much talk yourself out of buying anything ever made.
 
JD Powers is initial quality. Other problems may surface down the road, beyond the time interval that they have surveyed. However I turned up several pages which indicated some of the reported "problems" are caused by owners that are unfamiliar with features or operation of their vehicle. (obviously this would NOT be a problem with BITOG users!)

That said, I agree with D189379's assessment that people go to forums when they have an issue. There are plenty of posts for "my vehicle broke like this, help!" but few and far between are the ones that say "my vehicle has been perfect for xx,000 miles".

I think online forums indicate what problems are more likely to occur with a certain vehicle. The Jeep 0331 head is a good example. It's pretty well known, and usually happens at around 90k, but doesn't always occur. But if you own that vehicle, you need to be aware of it.
 
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Different motors. The Subaru 2.5L boxers were notorious for headgaskets on this side of the pond--unless if they were the turbo motors, in which case they didn't eat gaskets. Go figure. Also, I believe CRV has used a 2.4L I4 for what, a decade now? over here. Both motors gasoline, of course. Neither Subaru nor Honda offer diesel motors in the USA--and I don't think they have ever in the past either.

Originally Posted By: bigjl
Funny, but I don't know of anybody that has bad a head gasket failure in a Subaru.

And never read on one when I used to frequent SIDC and UKlegacy forum.

Haven't heard many problems with the CR-V though, BiL has had a 2.2 '03 CR-V for a year or so and apart from lack of maintenance by previous owner it has had no significant issues.

And a mate just bought an '07 CR-V with the 2.2 diesel lump and he is very happy with that.
 
The escape/transmission issue isn't exactly correct. The previous gen Escapes with the 4 cylinder has no transmission issues. You can scour the web and you'll be hard pressed to find one Escape transmission issue involving a 4-banger. The V6 was just too much for the CD4E transmission.
 
Get a used 07 Chrysler minivan and save the huge money over a new 2012 model.The 07 was the last of that generation (before the troublemaking 08-up generation).
 
I don't think the water pump failures on the 2az-fe are all that common and the pump would be a 100 dollar part. 2az's also have stripped head bolt issues which might be the high dollar item you're thinking of. But neither would keep me out of a Rav and the current I4 models use a new 2AR engine anyway, along with the ancient 4 speed auto (Toyota 6 speed doesn't work with the Rav4 style AWD).

I don't really like JD Powers because the are so short, IIRC 3 years. Consumer Reports goes out a bit further and then TrueDelta a bit further than that. Put them all together and see what stands out.

My advice... any but the Patriot (Italian, by the way).
 
I thought it was the RAV4 V6 model that had issues with the waterpump. Requires dropping the engine--pump may be cheap, but removal of engine and transmission (I believe they drop both from the bottomside) is where the cost comes from.
 
Originally Posted By: badtlc
The escape/transmission issue isn't exactly correct. The previous gen Escapes with the 4 cylinder has no transmission issues. You can scour the web and you'll be hard pressed to find one Escape transmission issue involving a 4-banger. The V6 was just too much for the CD4E transmission.


Hmmmm....I am under the impression that in 2009 both the I4 and V6 powered Escapes got the troubled 6F35 transmission, for which horror stories abound on the internet.


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My advice... any but the Patriot (Italian, by the way).

Based on hate of the vehicle or the company? It seems to have the same "average" ratings as the others(except CRV). I wonder how the total cost of ownership would play out after 8 years with it's $4,000 dollar cheaper price tag.

Thanks for everyone's input. I want to believe the ideas about the problem owners being more of the ones piping up the most.
 
I don't hate Jeep. If anything I wouldn't want them diluting their brand with the Patriot. But I don't buy that it's on par with the other offerings, take a look at TrueDelta or Consumer Reports and compare it to a Rav4, Subaru Forester, CRV from five years ago. Then consider for every Patriot they are selling probably 4 CRV's and 4 Escapes and that probably accounts for the increased problems you hear about. Also, their reliability only goes back 4 or 5 years and any car built today should last that long. If that's your concern forget about it, buy whatever you want.

And that 4000 dollars is certainly worth consideration. But take a look at what a 2007 CRV sells for compared to a 2007 Patriot, you basically get that back when you sell it/trade it in... or in my case keep driving it for another year or two longer. I don't know, that's not always an easy question to answer. What's really ailing your 9 year old Minivan? If you haul around nine cats and smoke cigars while doing it then maybe the resale will be zero either way.

My only reason for the Italian comment is that if you were going to buy it because it's "American" buy the Escape. It's a good car and you probably own some Ford stock (in a index fund or retirement account). Otherwise the CRV is foreign owned and made in the US just like the Patriot.
 
Simple way to look at it...JD Powers is only initial quality. People are surveyed about the first 90 days of ownership. I review this data on a monthly basis and find it not really beneficial except for car commercials. My main data for problem solving comes from dealership warranty and that is where I see the issues people are having and in what frequency it is occuring.

JD Powers really means nothing...internet forums would hold more value to me based on long term ownership problems reported.
 
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