On Jul 23, 11:38=A0am, Built_Well <Built_Well_Toy...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> I was surprised to read that the 2 bottom trim levels of the
>
> new Passat do not come with automatic headlights. =A0You have
>
> to spring for the third trim level (called Lux) to get the
> automatics. =A0Kinda surprised me. =A0All trims are turbo, though,
> even the bottom trim. =A0The little 4-cylinder (just 2.0 liter)
> engine can put out 200 horsepower.
>
> The Jetta, assembled in Mexico, now comes with a 5th cylinder.
> It's an inline 5, and boasts 2.5 liters, more than my 2.4 liter
> Camry. =A0But Consumer Re****ts says Volkswagen isn't known for
> its long-term reliability. =A0A Consumer Re****ts survey of owners
> listed the '06 Passat as one of the least reliable family cars,
> but it drives really good, nice handling.
>
Consumer Re****ts is a great big joke, always has been, and always will
be. Cant believe, in the age of the internet, they are even still in
business. I would be interested to know their subscription numbers
now, as opposed to their heyday period during the mid-80's, when
millions of Americans let CR think for them and choose the products
that they wanted to buy for them.
> The King of Reliability is Toyota, even besting Honda, which
> is the Queen, a close second to Toyota. =A0Info coming from the
> April, 2007, issue.
>
How the hell can a company that RECALLS more vechicles than it SELLS
be "the king of reliability"???????
Because CR deems it so, therefore, it must be so, I guess.
Ludicrus!
> Nissan (and its luxury nameplate Infiniti) is all over the map
> in reliability, from good reliability for some models to
> downright poor reliablility for other Nissan and Infiniti
> models (info based on 2006 survey for 3 most recent
> model years' data).
>
> Subaru and Hyundai also did respectably well in the survey.
> All the other manufacturers, though, showed wide ranges in
> reliability from poor to bad--similar to Nissan's showing.
>
> Mercedes-Benz was at the bottom of the 36-nameplate heap,
> which really surprised me. =A0Every time I get a hankering
> for a German car, I just gotta read Consumer Re****ts and
> I change my mind about wanting a German car (or even a U.S.
> car, I'm sad to say).
>
> I'm sure U.S. cars are improving dramatically, though.
> This was Consumer Re****ts '06 survey, 2 years old now, so
> it didn't include '07 and '08 models. =A0Some Mercury models
> did really well in the survey, as did some Lincoln models, but
> some other Lincoln and Mercury models scored badly in the 3-year
> reliability survey. =A0However, an outstanding Lincoln stand-out
> is the Lincoln Zephyr (or Lincoln MKZ which it was later known as).
>
American nameplates have been on at LEAST, on even par, quality-wise,
with the all-mighty Japanese nameplates for at least the past 20
years, statistically or otherwise. For some reason, CR, and the media
continue to sing the virtues of the foreign models over the American
nameplates.
> Going back to Mercedes for a second, in the survey, an
> 8-year-old Lexus scored better in reliablity than a new
> Mercedes-Benz ML500. =A0(Yow.) =A0Consumer Re****ts says the
> Lexus LS tops its survey, year in and year out. =A0The
> 1998 Lexus LS400 "had fewer problems than the 2006
> Mercedes-Benz ML500"--remember this survey was done
> in 2006, two years ago, so they were comparing an 8-year-old car to a
> new car.
>
> The top 7 nameplates were:
>
> 1) Toyota
> 2) Honda
> 3) Scion (a Toyota brand)
> 4) Acura (Honda luxury brand)
> 5) Lexus (Toyota luxury brand)
> 6) Subaru
> 7) Hyundai (but Hyundai's subsidiary Kia didn't do so well)
>
> All other companies' nameplates had some models which turned
> in less-than-average 3-year reliability scores. =A0 As mentioned,
> some models for the companies really excelled, but other models
> from the same companies did poorly.
>
> BMW, another German car I've desired before reading
> Consumer Re****ts, didn't do so well either.
>
> The BMW 7-series was among the least reliable luxury cars, along
> with the Jaguar S-Type. =A0BMW, as a whole, scored in the middle
> of the 36 name-plate bunch.
>
> Some of the least reliable small cars were the Chevrolet Cobalt,
> the 5-cylinder Volkswagen Jetta, and the Chevy Aveo.
>
> There were over 1.3 million cars re****ted on in the 2006 Consumer
> Re****ts Annual Car Reliablity Survey.
>
> Looking at more long-term data, the 1999 BMW 5 Series V8 had
> the worst engine cooling problem rate, with 34 percent. "In
> addition, 2000 to 2001 BMW 5 Series V8 and BMW 7-Series all
> had about 30 percent of their owners re****ting engine-cooling
> woes."
>
> A quote from the article:
>
> "More than half of the 2004 Infiniti QX56, Nissan Armada, and
> Nissan Titan owners re****ted a brake problem. =A0And almost half
> of 2005 Armada and Titan owners also re****ted brake problems."
>
> Now this Acura thing surprised me:
>
> "Nearly a quarter of owners of the 2001 Acura CL re****ted
> a bad tansmission problem, and nearly the same percentage of
> 1999 Volvo XC70s were re****ted to suffer from fuel-system problems."
>
> Damn, everytime I think of expanding my horizons beyond
> Toyota, cold, hard survey data and results bring me back,
> keeping me loyal to Toyota.
Yeah, if I wanted to buy a car, but CM told me not to, I probably
wouldn't buy it, either.
Like I said in a post a while back, someone a little older and wiser
than I am once told me, "Son, if God had intended for Comsumer Re****ts
to think for you, he wouldn't have given you a brain."
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