Reliability Ratings Article

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Originally Posted By: Ethan1
I can't take CR seriously because they use complaints about infotainment systems to calculate the car's reliability. OK, if the center stack shorts out, fine. But every person who complains about problems with voice recognition should not factor in the same as a transmission that grenades.

Also, how are they claiming to rate the reliability of new models?!
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+1 their ranking of complaints makes no sense.

Apparently if Car A has 10 infotainment issues (such as buttons in a bad spot) and Car B has 8 engine failures, they will still consider Car A to be the more unreliable choice because it has a greater number of "issues".
 
Yeah, I still read CR Mag and use it as a guideline. But, if I/we only bought vehicles based on CR's reliability ratings, we'd only be buying Toyota/Lexus today.

Unfortunately when we did buy vehicles by their higher ratings, we still had many issues with several of them(Accord(s) & Lexus') and enjoyed their ownership experience much less than with other vehicles.

As the matter of fact, I wouldn't be buying Altima's if this were the case. However, my Altima's thus far have been the more reliable vehicles, keeping vehicles in a 10-12 year period of time.

And, as far as resale value...sure, I've sold the Altimas for less than some of the competition(Accord/Camry) however, I purchased them for WAAAAAAAAY LE$$ money upfront and put waaaaay less money into them during the ownership, which more than made up for the difference.
 
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I think motortrend and caranddriver year long review of vehicles would be more significant rating as they rack up more than typical miles with different drivers.
 
Consumer Reports' reliability ratings are derived from the annual surveys that they send out to their members every year (I have been getting them for 40 years). The survey that they do is very well done and is carefully designed to prevent any personal opinions (or prejudices) from affecting the results (they have been doing this for decades and know how to do it). The only problem with the survey is that it only covers the first five years of a product's lifetime. Some vehicles (and other products) become significantly less reliable when they get older than this (many European vehicles come to mind) and some vehicles remain reliable for a much longer period (many Japanese vehicles come to mind). Also, one should not conclude that a vehicle is becoming more or less reliable based on the first year's results. Because of the way that the survey is done you won't see this trend until the second or third year.
One should NEVER pay ANY attention to J.D. Powers "awards"! Have any of you ever answered a survey from them? This company will give an award for anything to any company that pays them for it. They just make awards up as they go (and are paid for them).
 
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Modern CR reports are highly suspect to me. They used to peddle exclusively in reliability but their reviews lately are trying to be more like Car and Driver (and they don't do a great job of it). As for the survey data, it's such a slippery slope now with so much of the interaction we have with our cars taking place through dozens of infotainment systems of varying layout, speed, and accuracy. CR can be a point of reference but anyone who relies on it as "the gospel" anymore is probably missing out on many good options.

Fun side story: growing up in the 80's-90's my stepdad became so irritated with CR choosing Camry and Accord (or whatever Japanese cars) as the most reliable that he canceled his subscription due to the "bias", insisting that the Big 3 couldn't not be at the top (or that Japanese cars couldn't be that good). Ironically, during and after the cancellation, he had a lemon Oldsmobile, a lemon Dodge, and a lemon Mercury (to be fair he did have some good cars from the Big 3 in between those). He now drives a 2015 Honda Accord.
 
Originally Posted By: gofast182

Fun side story: growing up in the 80's-90's my stepdad became so irritated with CR choosing Camry and Accord (or whatever Japanese cars) as the most reliable that he canceled his subscription due to the "bias", insisting that the Big 3 couldn't not be at the top (or that Japanese cars couldn't be that good). Ironically, during and after the cancellation, he had a lemon Oldsmobile, a lemon Dodge, and a lemon Mercury (to be fair he did have some good cars from the Big 3 in between those). He now drives a 2015 Honda Accord.
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Originally Posted By: gofast182
Modern CR reports are highly suspect to me. They used to peddle exclusively in reliability but their reviews lately are trying to be more like Car and Driver (and they don't do a great job of it). As for the survey data, it's such a slippery slope now with so much of the interaction we have with our cars taking place through dozens of infotainment systems of varying layout, speed, and accuracy. CR can be a point of reference but anyone who relies on it as "the gospel" anymore is probably missing out on many good options.

Fun side story: growing up in the 80's-90's my stepdad became so irritated with CR choosing Camry and Accord (or whatever Japanese cars) as the most reliable that he canceled his subscription due to the "bias", insisting that the Big 3 couldn't not be at the top (or that Japanese cars couldn't be that good). Ironically, during and after the cancellation, he had a lemon Oldsmobile, a lemon Dodge, and a lemon Mercury (to be fair he did have some good cars from the Big 3 in between those). He now drives a 2015 Honda Accord.


Up until I bought my first Japanese car in 1988(Accord), all of my domestic cars(GM/Ford/Chrys) were very problematic. My Honda was great by comparison. However, it was not without it's flaws and issues(idiosyncrasies). Just not as many issues or severe, and I was able to put on more trouble free miles(340K) on the Honda than I did any 2-3 vehicles of the past. I then bought others(Honda's & Toyota's) and they too was a very good cars but not without some issues or idiosyncrasies. Just better than other vehicles that I've owned. I did have an Accord and a Lexus that DID NOT live up to their hype. I typically own my vehicles into their teens.

Surprisingly, my Nissan Altima's have been as or even more reliable(over a decade + of ownership) than even my HonYota's. And I've liked driving the Nissan's better. Boy, if Nissan could(statistically) get their act together for quality & reliability, they'd be an even better vehicle.

In my experience, 5 Chrysler vehicles have been the absolute most problematic vehicles and statistically, they seem to be holding on to that title.
 
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