Re: Consumer Re****ts reliability survey for Cars

"Ashton Crusher" <demi@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:k13o84lsi8s0k42dck1qo9scpqka96nk9m@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> The other problems with most of these surveys is that they express
> "problems per hundred".  That makes trivial differences seem like
> significant differences.  How does 150 problems versus 200 problems
> per year sound??  Pretty bad.  But how does 1.5 problem versus 2
> problems per year sound?  Trivial doesn't it.  Yet that's all the
> difference there is between the upper half or so of these cars. Should
> you make your buying decision on whether you'll have 1.5 instead of 2
> problems a year fixed under warranty???????

It is even worse than that. Suppose you had two minor problems, say ****ft 
indicator adjustment and low fluid level for one brand versus the 
transmission completely failing for another.  Or suppose 9 Toyotas had
zero 
problems but the one you bought had 15? Ironically the data collected by 
both JD Powers and CR is probably a lot more useful to the manufacturers 
than to individuals.

Ed