@bloody_knuckles I suppose I could be considered as an aging person at age 75, but I plan to stay around for.a.long time because there are a lot more people on this board and.other places that I want to irritate. The last.thing I want to do is croak, because I know where the hell I’ll be going. In the meantime, we geezers do make purchases. For example, I may buy another minivan in the not too distant future. It seems to me that a side by side comparison of the Toyota Sienna, the Honda Odyssey, the Chrysler Pacifica, and the Kia minivan with the cubic feet of cargo space, the turning radius, the front and rear seat legroom, etc. would be useful not only to this old geezer, but to a young family as well.
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I bought the top-rated Sleep Number I-8 about 3 years ago, and I have to say that it is the best mattress on which I have ever slept. I opted for all of the optional bells and whistles, and in addition to the incredible comfort of the mattress itself, putting the bed into the Zero-G position and then activating the massage function is just the ticket for easing my creaky old back if I have overdone things with gardening and other tasks.
Well I know I will consider J.D.Powers’ reviews closely when I look into buying my next new vehicle and immediatly scratch their recommendations off my list. And CR’s reviews have left me scratching my… head for many years.
I first started reading CR when I found a copy in a laundromat before I was married. By 1968 I had a subscription and have had those ever since. The first item bought on their recommendation was a Maytag washing machine which lasted 22 years.
For the sake of a few dollars per year I at least stay informed which are bad appliances, bad cars, and stay on top of such things as electronics. We bought a large screen Panasonic TV in 2008, to watch the Beijing Olympics, because it had the best picture quality as per CR. We still love the set but today’s best models use less electricity and have an even better picture.
CR made me avoid RCA and GE electrical stuff since those brands are now made by Thomson Electric of France, a bottom feeder in the business. Likewise, early Acer computers and Haier refrigerators were of poor quality.
Costco now sells Visio TVs from Chinese design, and I look forward to see CR’s ratings. Until then I’ will refrain from even looking at them.
On food and other things I make up my own mind; CR has no business telling me what is dangerous; food labels tell me enough and my wife has several friends who are either pharmacists or nutritionists.
So CR is not the Oracle, but very cost-effective info on what to avoid.
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The folks at Consumer Reports have some quirks, but I love them for it. The BestRide team (two of the four of us are also CarTalk contributors) selected the Honda Ridgeline not just as the best midsize pickup (Unanimous), but also best vehicle overall for 2016 (In a tie with Genesis). Maybe we are all nuts, but that truck is so much better than everything else in its class it is just a slam dunk. Unless you are a dedicated off-road fanatic, in which case a stock truck like a Tacoma TRD Pro or Chevy Colorado ZR2 has the edge.
I use CR as ONE source. Not THEE source. Their customer source data is decent, but has it’s own flaws. But for the most part has been trustworthy. I don’t value their independent testing at all.
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“For the sake of a few dollars per year I at least stay informed which are bad appliances, bad cars, and stay on top of such things as electronics.”
I am thankful that I’ve had the good sense to ignore the CR ratings/recommendations for car purchases. I do look at them and then do some more research on my own.
Some of the best, almost flawless vehicles that I’ve ever owned were not rated highly or rated poorly by them. That’s a shame. I generally keep cars to 250,000 to 300,000 miles. I have over 300,000 on an Impala with no engine or transmission repairs and very little on anything else. This is typical in my experience.
I will say that I do like to look at the car ratings if I need a chuckle!
I guess what happens is that folks use the ratings to buy cars. They buy highly rated ones and have excellent results. The problem is that some of us ignore those ratings, do our homework and use our own intelligence to make car purchases and have excellent results.
See that little Grand Prix photo to the left? I believe CR rated it pretty high. Guess what? It has been as reliable as the lower rated GM cars I own/have owned.
Here’s another thing not covered in the ratings… Most of the highly recommended cars have NO dealer representation within 100 miles of where I live. I’d never consider one. If they don’t care about me, I don’t care for them.
I suppose it makes for a good discussion and you get to try and impress people with your car buying prowess by mentioning the use of the car ratings in a particular magazine. 
CSA
There is a class for pickups that can’t be used as pickups because the crummy bed is too short to hold a decent dirt bike with the tailgate up? I am beginning to wonder about BestRide as a reference point.
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Based on simple statistics (I know that Math isn’t a strong point of yours CCA)… Then your vehicles with poor ratings that held up well are an anomaly. Because the poor ratings mean that MORE of the people who owned similar vehicles didn’t hold up well then people who owned similar cars with higher ratings. Statistics doesn’t say that EVERY SINGLE VEHICLE with a bad rating will ALL have a problem. Just means that a higher percentage of people who owned similar vehicles had fewer problems. Your vehicles may have fewer problems then those…but a higher percentage of people who owned your same vehicle actually had MORE problems. I’ll stick with good statistics every time over ONE persons skewed perception.
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Don’t give up on us yet @ Volvo_V70! You should look at the Ridgeline if space is important to you. The Ridgeline has a 64-inch long cargo bed. It can also store a mountain bike, with the front wheel on, behind the front seats. The Ridgeline can also haul drywall or plywood sheets lying flat in the cargo bed inside the wheel wells, something the Canyon, Colorado, and Tacoma cannot do. Plus, it has a trunk. The midsize truck market is growing faster than almost every other vehicle segment and both Toyota and GM cannot keep pace with the demand. Honda’s sales goals are modest, so it is hard to tell if they are sales or production limited. Even the old-design Frontier’s sales have surged.
@gorehamj, I was surprised to see how poorly the Toyota Tacoma rated in the midsize pickup category: last with an overall rating of 45. What did you dislike about it that every other truck did so much better? I’m not into trucks, but many of the folks here have talked about what great trucks they are, or were.
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I’m not a CR Groupie so maybe you can explain what a four person “Bestride” team is? It just looked like you had to really wanna sound off about a product by registering and voting. Not like you get a questionnaire in the mail or anything.
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I agree
AFAIK, Tacomas are quite reliable, hold their value well, and tons of people are still buying them
All those buyers can’t be wrong, or can they? 
What I have read, is that the Tacoma does have a very rough ride. But if you don’t want a rough ride, you shouldn’t be buying a pickup truck for your daily driver . . .
I’m assuming from this you are ready to buy your wife a Fiat 500 and a Fisher Paykel dishwasher. My use of CR is to screen out the really bad stuff or items that do not perform as expected…
For a retired couple who do not drive much, a Dodge Caravan minivan which sells for nearly $9000 less here than a Honda Odessy, would be a reasonable choice.
We lived in Asia for 5 years and the well heeled locals would prefer a bad Mercedes over a good Lexus.
Most panelists here use CR as one of the several inputs in making a purchase.
CR rates the VW Passat as reliable, but from what dealers charge for parts service and the relatively short life of these cars it’s a poor buy. So you need multiple input to make a good decision.
I don’t live in a black or white world.
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I’m not part of Consumer Reports, but I know the single main complaint about Tacomas in general is the seating position is considered too low by many. I like the Tacaoma.
Sorry Bing. I just meant to add that the four of us who write reviews and feature stories at BestRide had a lot of overlap with the folks at Consumer Reports. Particularly about the surprisingly good Ridgeline. Our best of 2016 list is subjective and based on the cars we tested for the year.
@Docnick. I did purchase a Visio television at Target for our sun room that we use 6 months a year. It is an inexpensive set. It developed a problem while still on the warranty period. The warranty papers said that I was to get authorization to ship the set at my expense to a repair center where it would be repaired and the factory would absorb the cost to ship it back to me. When I called the toll free number and gave the model number, serial number and the receipt number from Target, they dispatched a.technician to my house the same day. He had the proper circuit board with him and had.the set fixed in less than ten minutes. He then spent half an hour playing with our dog. I think the dog is hoping the set.will go out again. I also had a problem with our main TV set, an Insignia that I purchased at Best Buy. It had the power.supply board.fail in the.warranty. This.set.was.repaired in my home at no cost to me. I have had no problems with either set since the repairs four years ago. My brother.bought a.Vizio about 5 years ago and has never had a problem.
I would really like for Consumer Reports to test low budget items and.see.how they compare with upscale items.
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Just a continuation. I think I have been partial to Samsung TVs but really couldn’t tell you without looking what they are. I have bought them from Walmart and Target and just look at the displays first. All in all I don’t expect them to last too many years but so far, none of the flat screens have developed problems. I’ve got five of them in bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, office, etc., if I counted right. One tip though, if you ever get chosen for Neilson, don’t tell them how many TVs you’ve got or you’ll be filling out endless reports every hour.
As far as CR cars, I just glanced at the book again and it was interesting that the Fiat 500 was listed as a recommended new car but in the worst of the worst used cars, it was also listed. I wouldn’t buy one anyway since it still looks like the car I used to deliver chicken in in 1966.
As far as trucks go, I can’t comment on the Ridgeline except that a lot of people seem to prefer the the F-150. At any rate my issue is that on the two or three times a year I need to haul a 4x8 sheet, I use the $1000 trailer. Just seems like a lot more practical than having a $30,000 plus truck for that job. Unfortunately, towing 1500# in a standard car does not seem to be an important feature in CR or even Motor Trend. I like a regular small car for my personal use and with fold down seats and a trailer, I can haul anything except a big boat. The best of both worlds. And its a lot easier to cut down a sheet of plywood on the trailer than in a truck bed.
Of course just in my humble curmudgeon opinion.
Quote from jsanders: “Compact car: Chevrolet Cruze: Yuuuge surprise, and it feels so good. For me, anyways.” Unquote
It’s good to see the Chevrolet Cruze doing well. We test drove one a while back and were pleased with how quiet it was inside while going down the freeway. We buy new GM cars partially paid with our GM charge card credit built up to $2000 as of now. GM buys mfr’s goods and parts from the company that I worked for so that helps to keep my pension coming. We don’t get the problems with cars that Consumer Reports describes so I don’t take them seriously.
Nice to hear you got at least good service from Visio. They have to do that in order to get a foothold in North America. Visio is a widely sold brand in Asia with close to 30 % market share. Our Panasonic, however, is on 7-8 hours per day and has operated flawlessly since May 2008. Our other 2 TVs are Samsung and they have likewise performed without a hitch the last 4 years.
I agree that low end products have their place and that Consumer reports should test and survey them as well. For occasional use I have no problem with buying cheap, such as some power tools you may only use a couple of times a month. I have two Homelite chain saws, one pole model and the other a 24" electric one. Both work fine.