Questions About The Old Asian/Domestic Car Issue

I’ll split a response into 2 sections. First is why I believe CR should not be the final arbiter and there are a lot of reasons why.

  1. There are 190,000,000 million passenger vehicles on the road. CR receives 1.3 million responses and this does not mean 1.3 M complaints. This is good, bad, and indifferent. It’s pocket change at best.

  2. CR does no investigation into whether a complaint is even justified or not. Many “bad car complaints” are actually owner caused problems or the owner’s failure to understand what warranty covers and who pays for maintenance.
    (Example. Lady crashes her 2 week old new car into the ditch after sliding on ice. It’s not her fault no way, no how. She says so.
    Gentleman has a bad car only AFTER he discovers that warranty will not pay for his regular maintenance services.) These types of reactions are extremely common.

  3. CR is making a subjective opinion based on subjective responses.

  4. People being what they are, many people who are perfectly happy with their car will hear about a problem with an identical model (be it the news, a neighbor complaining, etc, etc.) and then decide their new car has issues too. (“Funny, now that you mention it my transmission has been a bit balky…”

  5. CR makes no allowances for demographics, numbers sold, etc, etc. (A study once showed that Honda owners on average keep their garages much cleaner than other car owners. Does this translate to better maintenance? Who knows?)

There are other points but I’ll start another post and list a few CR tests. Feel free to skim them and tell me if they appear to be scientific in nature.

I suspect that the “Asian myth” started when federal regulations required carmakers to make more efficient cars, which American’s didn’t know how to do, but the Asians had already figured out. American quality suffered while they learned how to build smaller cars. Myths can live a long time past the times when they’re true.

Until 10 years ago, my mother had a 79 Ford Fairmont with the 200 cubic inch straight six. It never had a single problem and never in my memory failed to start. Even on the coldest days (here in Texas) it started easily (my mother didn’t undo the high idle cam before shifting out of park, which bothered me). When I become old enough I was the one to take care of it. It still had no problems when she traded up to a modern (at the time) car. I don’t know how many miles it had on it, but it appears to have given a good service life.

My first car was an 86 Hyundai Excel, which was a piece of crap. The Korean makers seem to have figured it out since then.

My 99 Cavalier with nearly 250,000 miles has been through a fuel pump, one tie rod end, a water pump, and an alternator, in addition to maintenance items (not including the clutch, still original). I mostly limit my speed to 70 because I want it to last, but I’ve recently gone 85 for 10 seconds or so to pass on some of the high-speed rural roads Texas has, and it felt as smooth as a new car (I frequently drive other cars).

I suspect that the issue here is exactly as described, an “old” Asian/domestic car issue. I suspect the 200 cid engine and C4 (I think it was, but could be wrong) transmission were old and proven technology that just happened to fit in the new fuel-efficient scheme and therefore did well. I don’t have a wide experience with cars, but my experience suggests to me that Asian, GM, and Ford (no experience with Chrysler Corp.) cars are all pretty damn reliable. I don’t have enough experience with a variety of cars to know which ones have specific problems (that’s what this forum is for), but I mostly have no reluctance to recommend just about any of those makers and resist the myth that Asian cars are better. They’re good, but GM and Ford are also good.

CR says Toyota Tundra has “better acceleration” than a Chevy Silverado.
Toyota: 380 HP with a 4:30 axle.
Chevy : 315 HP with a 3:73 axle.

A few years ago a Volvo and Acura were tested. (models not remembered)
O to 60 time. Acura was .2 faster.
Acura; "peppy and spirited"
Volvo: “sluggish”

Fuel mileage identical.
Acura: "Good"
Volvo: “Average”

Back seat legroom. (Physically measured by CR and determined to be the same.)
Acura: "Good"
Volvo: “Unacceptably tight”

Ok, someone peruse that and tell me it’s not slanted.

I will add something else. Much of this Asian better talk started in the 70s and 80s when the Big Three were going through teething pains trying to comply with numerous Federal emissions regulations.
What is never, and I mean NEVER, mentioned is that all of the Asian cars were going through the same thing with carburetion, vacuum lines by the mile, and countless electric/vacuum/temperature controlled solenoids.
For every single problem a domestic car had a Japanese car had a corresponding problem and often it was worse.

How do I think reliability should be determined? My opinion (and it will be impossible to do) would be to track every single car made by all car makers say for the first year and log every single customer complaint into a database.
The number crunchers would then have to sort through the complaints per model, weigh it against numbers sold, and so on.
Each complaint would have to be analyzed to make sure it’s actually a legit one.

Mechanics should be the ones to weigh in on this because they are the ones actually seeing the problems day in and day out.
I may make a separate post on Subaru. Some of you know that I rip on them quite a bit. Well, there’s a reason for that. They’re the worst of the lot when it comes to putting on the blinders.

Believe me, mechanics are on the front line of these problems and many times these problems never make it to or out of the warranty claim file. The mechanic gets shafted and the “problem” never happened with the car having a clean slate.

OK “Ok, someone peruse that and tell me it’s not slanted.”

I’ve listened but your arguments are out of context. Often when CR does observe difference in acceleration and makes comparative statements, it’s taking into account ALL acceleration times including towing. I have noted a .2 difference in 0 to 60 but is often accompanied buy a much greater difference in passing or towing time which is often more critical. Especially true when the Tundra tows a greater payload to that slight difference. Using adjectives to describe difference is fraught with confusion as readers get fixated on a few words and fail to take the entire article in context. Argument makers often do this to make a point.

The bottom line statements like “TOYOTAS tend to be more reliable, Nissan has not when compared to FORD over the years” is a general statement. You can’t argue with these types of statements. Isolating argumentative adjectives to reinforce that CR has not shown relative accuracy over the years compared to just about any publication, is a stretch.

CR tends to be pretty accurate…ask Bose Corporation or anyone else who has sued them.

“Texases” has it.

I agree with everything in that comment except this one.

"Back seat legroom. (Physically measured by CR and determined to be the same.)
Acura: “Good"
Volvo: “Unacceptably tight””

The Volvo back seat is unacceptable…The Acura has far more room then the Volvo. In the Volvo with the front seat all the way back…my then 13you son couldn’t even get into the back seat…No problem with the Acura.

But reviews are one thing…Statistic gathering is something else. But as I said earlier…CR does have it’s problems…

“I will add something else. Much of this Asian better talk started in the 70s and 80s when the Big Three were going through teething pains trying to comply with numerous Federal emissions regulations.”

What…was Toyota/Honda/Datsun EXEMPT from the Federal emissions regulations??? How come they didn’t have a problem meeting the regulations. And the problems I had with the Big three had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with Emission regulations…

eraser1998

You are 100% correct…in that people like me have had problems with certain vehicles in the past and have had excellent luck with Toyota/Honda or Nissan and have stuck with them. The big-3 MAY be making better vehicles now…But why would I take the chance on a Maybe??? A car is a persons second biggest purchase they make in their life. And some people will spend more money on their cars then they do their homes (people usually only buy 1-2 homes in their lifetime…but they usually buy many cars). I’m not about to WASTE my money on a possibility??? With new cars these days going for $30k+…that’s a BIG gamble. People tend to stick with what works for them. I’ll NEVER fault someone for that.

I do find fault with people like my brother-in-law who for over 20 years kept buying Fords…And each and every one had MAJOR problems. They were junk after 80k miles…His wifes first car when they started a family was a Taurus back in 87…Junk by 1993…Buys another Taurus…junk by 2001…buys another Taurus…junk by 2008…buys a Corolla…Still running strong…has yet to go to a mechanic for repairs. And those Taurus’s…he was putting THOUSANDS into each one over the years…When his daughter started college he couldn’t afford to keep buying junk cars. Loyalty can only go so far.

looking at that graph texases posted, I have to ask, where’s Mazda on that chart? Where they included under the Ford badge like Lincoln and Mercury?

@mike:
I took a gamble on my Mazda, especially since the model, as a whole, was only 3 years old at the time and the 2007 model had major teething problems, but they seemed to have worked them out in a year or two.

Buddy of mine at work was talking about one of his friends in that they traded cars VERY often. He said the last time he spoke to the guy, he bought a Camry(or Corolla, can’t remember which). When he traded in the car to buy the Camry, he was so far upside down on the car, due to trading in cars like pokemon cards, that he was paying like $7~900 a MONTH for that Camry.
I don’t remember if it was the same guy or not, but he had another buddy that was very anal about the cars he had. He took a car back and demanded a new radio for the car because it had a tiny scratch on the face plate of it. You could only see the scratch if the sun was shining on it just so, and it might have been 2 or 3 cm in length.

OK, several of your comments are about the CR testing, not the reliability statistics. I make no claim about their testing.

The others are about the potential inaccuracy of the reliability statistics. Many are valid, but they apply to all makes. Like I said, do folks think the Toyota and Honda drivers are, as a group, on average, understating their problems compared to EVERYBODY else? I reject that claim.

Another to add to ok4450’s list of problems:

Honda Passport: excellent reliability
Isuzu Rodeo: average reliability

Mazda6 powertrain: average reliability
Ford Fusion powertrain: best in class reliability

or a few years ago (all in one year):

Mercury Mariner : one of the 25 most reliable vehicles made
Ford Escape: no better than average
Ford Focus: most reliable Ford model made, but NOT one of the 25 most reliable vehicles made.

If that was the case, then Escape=Mariner, so the Escape should have tied with the Mariner, and if the Focus was better than the Escape, it should have been on their most reliable list. No logic whatsoever.

And that’s for reliability statistics, NOT for testing. The rub is that they’re rating identical vehicles (or mechanically identical vehicles) very differently - as great as the difference they show between Ford and Toyota. Which is why, when you read their releases, they state that Ford is on par with Honda and Toyota. They’ve measured a difference, but that difference is smaller than their measurement error.

Yes, individual cars with similar/identical power trains do get different ratings, because of statistical variation in small samples, not because of how CR rates them. That’s why I look for long term trends, and look at brand average trends. One car, one item, one year, that’ll vary. All cars, all items, all years, that doesn’t.

You’ve never taken a statistics course, have you?

Yes, I have. Your point?

This conversation is now alive and well in at least two threads, and it’s not getting anywhere closer to resolution. The personal sniping doesn’t do any good. If you want to continue the argument, use explanations and logic rather than ad hominem attacks.

texases -

The point is simple. You’re looking at a VERY small number of complaints, even aggregated across the different models of a brand, and from a limited sample. I know it sounds like CR has an impressive number of responses, but thats still not enough to resolve small absolute differences with a perfect survey - and their survey methodology is far from perfect, leading to more error. That’s basic statistics, so you should understand that. As to the survey method errors:

  1. A good survey NEVER has a self-selected population of respondents. CR violates this in two major ways. First, the respondents must be subscribers, which artificially filters the population. Second, the respondents choose whether or not to reply to the survey invite. Their overall response rate among subscribers is actually very low, even if the number of responses seems significant.

  2. A good survey has questions which aren’t vague. CR asks owners if they have had a “serious problem”. They don’t define serious. That leads owners open to interpret serious however they want. I actually know someone with a Toyota that had an engine replaced and they didn’t view it as serious because Toyota paid. As a customer, such treatment makes you happy, but it doesn’t increase the reliability of the vehicle.

  3. A good survey validates the data that they receive. CR does spot checks at best.

All of these things add even more uncertainty into the measurement, and the result is that there isn’t a statistically significant difference between most brands. In their own statements:

http://articles.ocregister.com/2009-10-28/news/24571690_1_reliability-consumer-reports-lincoln-mkz

World-class is defined as “unsurpassed”. So they’re openly stating that there is no significant difference in reliability.

From the plot I posted, how is 60 problems per 100 cars in 5 years a small number of complaints?

As for the survey being ‘self selected’, how many surveys aren’t? Nobody is forced to respond to any survey. Are you saying that no survey results of any type are to be believed?

If you were correct, that the sample is too small to be accurate, then no trends would occur within brands, correct? Each page of ratings would be a sea of random dots. That is not the case. Some brands are largely ‘red’, some largely ‘black’. How do you explain this very systematic variation? Responder bias? What possible reason would an owner of a '08 Camry in LA have to respond similarly to the owner of a '05 Corolla in NY?

Nothing you’ve stated explains the clear, systematic results that the CR surveys present when comparing brands. If your assertions were correct, the plot I posted would not show the large variation between brands.

You state that “there isn’t a statistically significant difference between most brands” How do you know this? This is a very specific claim, requiring very specific, quantitative proof.

http://articles.ocregister.com/2009-10-28/news/24571690_1_reliability-consumer-reports-lincoln-mkz

World-class is defined as “unsurpassed”. So they’re openly stating that there is no significant difference in reliability.

THERE you go … CR themselves saying that there isn’t a difference.

I’m baffled. How does Ford’s high scores mean ‘there is no significant difference’?

I will answer in completing your sentence.

Asian cars are better than domestics based on the evidence I’ve seen which is…all based on the make. Meaning, Honda is considered to be better than Chrysler or Lexus is considered better than Ford. But, not all imports are better than domestics. Mazda, Mitsubishi and some others (no offense to Maz/Mit owners) are simply not better then Ford or GM.

This can also be based on opinion or emotion.

Forget CR. Thier results are skewed by good or bad emotions or expierences of vehicle owners and a vehicle can be trashed for something the vehicle owner did that hurt the vehicle.

I have a definite opinion of Honda–but only the Honda rototillers. My first wife’s father bought a Honda rototiller. All was well until rodents chewed the wiring. There was no key in the shaft, so when the flywheel was removed to repair the wiring, one had to experiment to put the flywheel back correctly. I’ll take a good old Briggs and Stratton engine any day. On the other hand, the Honda rototiller had to be better than the 2 stroke Earthquake machine I presently own. If I don’t look at it just right, it is a bear to start.
As for cars, I have no experience in repairing engines.