But if it’s a true distribution then the same percentage of people who own Touareg and Highlander read the owners manual.
True of the distribution is random, but it is not likely that the distribution of car buyers will be random. Who buys Cadillacs vs Corvette vs Prius. Those are going to be far different drivers.
True of the distribution is random, but it is not likely that the distribution of car buyers will be random. Who buys Cadillacs vs Corvette vs Prius. Those are going to be far different drivers.
But you wouldn’t be comparing a Cadillac to a Corvette would you. You’d be comparing a Camry to a Malibu.
The problem is that you are assuming that this is a valid cross-section of the car buying public. It isn’t, nor is CR. They are both self-selecting groups, so the information about reliability has to be tempered with that knowledge. You can get some insight, but remember that people having a problem tend to complain, and can raise quite a stink, while those of us having no problems tend to be satisfied and keep quiet.
One other thing to look out for is people citing experiences that “a friend of a friend” had to show that car manufacturer B makes bad cars or has lousy dealers/service. Generalizations are rarely helpful, and in many cases outright incorrect.
I’m going to jump in on the off-topic grammar nitpicking and say that you can certainly start a sentence with a conjunction, thecarguy. Read books or articles written by people with a great command of the language, and you’ll see it done all the time. Kids are taught not to do it because they’ll misuse it, but that doesn’t mean TSM can’t. His is a perfect example of starting a sentence with a conjunction for emphasis.
Let’s leave out the grammar comments unless you’re prepared to write perfectly.
I just signed up…I take delivery of my new car in about two weeks, so I’ll be starting right from scratch with it! 
Just in case others didn’t realize, it’s free to join, and you get access to all the data just for participating.
Wow. And I thought physics was tough!
The nice thing about physics is that matter will do what it will do no matter what rules you think you made up for it. You simply need to figure out why. “Laws” of physics are just our understandings of why matter does what it does, usually decribed in the language of mathematics.
With English, the rules are all made up. Language can do whatever you want it to whether you dangle your participles (sp?) or not.
Physics is fun. English is tough.
You identified that elusive concept called “design quality” which means intrinsic robust design for long life, good material selection & quality control, and good enough assembly to avoid reliability problems.
Many cars have good assembly quality and look and feel great intially. British popular cars always had good assembly quality, but were poorly engineered, so they bit the dust quickly. Volkswagens are a good example as well, and both Ford and GM have improved their assembly quality to the point where it is very close to Japanese standards.
To my wife this means that Kitchen Aid and Braun food processing appliances will last forever, while cheap Asian knockoffs are good for only a few years.
Sounds like your sister was quite unlucky. A company I worked at had a standard fleet of Taurus’(5) over 6yrs/120k miles and had little issues with them. According to Consumer Reports they had an average repair record which seemed to reflect my old company experience.
One of my old coworkers “bid” on one for $1100 and still drives it to this day with over 200k.
Sounds like your sister was quite unlucky.
Luck had nothing to do with it…The way the car was designed and built had EVERYTHING to do with it. This car was a piece of cr*p. She bought it because two other people she worked with owned them…They all had the same problems she did.
The Taurus represents a good example of Ford’s philosophy. In 1986 the Taurus was the first car to be designed by an integrated team, consisting of engineering, production, purchasing, maintenance, etc. The idea was to copy Honda’s 3 year development cycle time, which it had been practicing from day one. The purpose was not so much a better car, but to reduce the lead time, assembly hours and quality control at the assembly level. As a result, assembly hours were a very good 18 hours or so, and Ford made money on the car.
JD Power rates owner Initial Satisfaction, and good assembly quality is the most important aspect of this. Nowhere in the Taurus program did Ford copy the other aspects of Honda design; namely Six Sigma parts quality, design for durability, intensive road testing,good materials selection, etc. All these functions at Ford had a COST REDUCTION focus only. Good Enough was the new design standard.
The Taurus was good enough to be a US best seller for a few years. Then the focus was on SUVs and pickup trucks and the Taurus received very littly new ideas input. By Chinese, Russian and Italian standards, it was a good car, but car design is a moving target, and Honda, Toyota and Mazda raced ahead, leaving the Taurus in the dust.
This website would never be able to show an accurate , un-biased, representation of all brands, all walks of life, all driving styles or all malfunction problems. I can’t even imagine that you’d think that this website, visited by such a select few, would allow for a mathematicaly accurate ratio.
Agree, Ken that it would not be statisically representative. However, the frequency of people with Subaru, BMW, Volkswagen and Volvo problems gets very repetitive.
People who pay good money for these special cars presumably read the manuals on how to take care of them. But then, as Mike suggested, maybe they just enjoy driving them, and assume the car will take care of itself.
And have a lot of extra time on their hands to sit at the computer and chat, in comparison to owners of other brands. Another variable that skews the ratios represented here, computer access and time.
“…My wife bought her 96 Accord a year before her sister bought her 98 Taurus…”
A lot has changed in 10 years. Traditional US manufacturers are producing much more reliable cars than back then, though my 1998 Buick has been excellent. I wouldn’t write off a car just because it is a traditional US make. I would also consider the nontraditional US cars, like Toyota, Honda, Subaru, Nissan, Hyundai…