Do you only buy products CR recommends? Do you own anything they have
given a poor rating to only to have the opposite experience? I have
heard anecdotes about CR not being so unbiased. Or course those are
only anecdotes. I take CR with a grain of salt. From what I've seen
(just my personal opinion) they seem to give higher marks to items
that are selling very well, regardless of quality. In spite of all
their testing, public perception seems to bleed it's way in to their
ratings. But as I said, this is my one person's personal opinion.
Jeff M
On Apr 5, 2009, at 3:46 PM, Alvin Auerbach wrote:
"...from what I could tell."
As individuals, our car yarns are anecdotes. When Consumer Reports
(CR) collects all of those anecdotes, they become statistics. CR has
auto test engineers who test the cars in CR's own lab and on CR's
own test track. No individual can do all of that. No individual can
make the sound judgement of quality and performance and reliability
that CR can, using their own tests and the data gathered from their
readers; and data from government and insurance industry tests.
Of course, this is all done by people, and occasionally, people make
mistakes. Of course, the public has their own preferences and value
judgments, but using your own criteria you can make a sound choice
from the data on the cars listed by CR; both new and used.
Additionally, CR anonymously purchases their cars from dealers,
using ordinary folks who buy the cars in their own names.
AFAIK, the auto magazines borrow cars from the manufacturers. All of
the money that comes to CR, comes from their readers. AFAIK, most of
the money that comes to the auto magazines, comes from their
advertisers. There is apt to be very much less bias from CR than
from the auto magazines.
IMO, from the purchase to the publication, no one informs the public
about cars as well as does Consumer Reports.
Alvin
On Apr 5, 2009, at 6:01 PM, Jeff Miles wrote:
I stayed away from foreign models due to cost for the size I was
looking for. Sure you can get a high quality full size foreign car,
but they cost twice as much, and the quality seems just about the
same from what I could tell.
Jeff M
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