Bias Against Domestic Cars
in [Toyota]
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From: Mike Hunter on 26 Nov 2009 11:20 Get real! MSRP is NOT what one needs to compare. The total drive home price is the thing to compare. Industry statistic show historically Japanese import buyers generally pay 20% to 30% more to drive home their vehicle than buys of domestics of the same size and comparably equipped. For instance, the Matrix generally cost $2,500 more to dive home than the Pontiac Vibe When I was retail we always earned a higher gross in our Toyota and Honda stores than we did in our domestic stores. We stressed resale value when we were selling Toyotas and Hondas but we rarely had to pay even wholesale to get the owner to trade a Toyota and Honda Toyota and Honda were always more willing to settle for a lower discounts and trade prices and willing to pay higher interest rates and more apt to accept our the "smoke and mirrors" add-ons because they think they are "better." We could easily add a $3,000 to $4,000 "smoke and mirrors" pack onto our Toyotas and Hondas. We had not problem charging a $20 higher shop rate in our Toyota and Honda shops.. I guess because buyer believed they would be in the shop less often. "SMS" <scharf.steven(a)geemail.com> wrote in message news:4b0deeec$0$1606$742ec2ed(a)news.sonic.net... > Ashton Crusher wrote: >> If you paid $2000 more >> for your Toyota then for a comparable Chevy you an be sure many of the >> respondents are going to sugarcoat their experience, after all, they >> are not going to want to face up to the fact that every Toyota >> dealership has a big repair shop in the back just like every Chevy >> dealer does. > > And there we have the extent of the proof that CR has some inherent bias. > > Of course the reality is that no one has ever suggested that a Toyota > owner is more likely to sugar-coat their experience than a Chevy owner. In > fact you could argue that the Toyota owner is more likely to complain > about problems because they have higher expectations. > > And of course there has never been anything close to a $2000 difference in > identical vehicles, identically equipped, with identical warranties, sold > through different channels. There were MSRPs that were a few hundred > dollars apart, and street prices that were even fewer dollars apart.
From: caviller on 26 Nov 2009 19:11 On Nov 25, 8:51 pm, SMS <scharf.ste...(a)geemail.com> wrote: > cavil...(a)my-deja.com wrote: > > Their surveys aren't randomy > > sampled or scientific in any way. The results are not peer reviewed > > and they don't publish any statistical information like sample size, > > margin of error, standard deviation, nada. > > Of course they do. They always state the sample size, and if they don't > have a sufficiently large sample for a specific product then they leave > it out, as you can see in every one of their surveys, including the most > recent wireless carrier surveys. I'll bite. I'm looking at the April, 2009 auto issue. Let's take the Ford Fusion on page 89. I see lots of red circles. I'm not seeing them state any numbers aside from the model year and the "6" in V6. No sample size for this model is given, though you claim it is always stated. No margin of error for the reliability projection. Nothing of statistical value whatsoever. You must still be getting the special edition? Please share. > Claims of bias are pure sour grapes. A few people that buy a product get > all upset when their choice is not validated by independent entities. No > where was such an attitude more prevalent than for Saturn owners which > could never accept the fact that all the marketing hype about the brand > was not supported by the statistical reports of reliability from > Consumer Reports and J.D. Power. You of course are well aware of this > behavior since you were one of those that engaged in it. Well, I engaged in the amusement provided by helping to debunk your anti-Saturn rhetoric and finding all your contradictions, anyway. For example, as you've apparently forgotten, the SL/SW series usually did reasonably well in reliability, according to Consumer Reports. In fact, according to the April, 2001 issue, every single year of the 8 listed was average (4) or above average (4) and had check marks for their "reliability verdict". So there's no sour grapes to be had there, but of course, I can't tell you how accurate those results are. That's because, again, no statistical information whatsoever is provided. As for the original topic, you're free to believe there is no bias at Consumer Reports. You can believe the same about Fox News and any other media outlet, too. The fact is they are all run by editors and management that have a bias to keep their jobs, in addition to any policy and personal biases they may have. That they don't bother to support their reliability circles with any statistical details should make any skeptic wonder why. In the age of websites, the lack of space in the print version is no longer a good excuse. Is there an organizational policy bias against domestic autos? Probably not. That doesn't make their reviews and reliability results unbiased.
From: caviller on 26 Nov 2009 19:26 On Nov 26, 9:52 am, Vic Smith <thismailautodele...(a)comcast.net> wrote: Hi Vic! > Not getting into statistical analysis methods, I'll note the CR has > NEVER given sampling sizes on a model basis. Only total surveys. > I am perfectly willing to be corrected on that. You won't be. > And I won't make any claims about those numbers beyond the fact that > they could reveal a built in bias that is common in self-selected > surveys. Won't even say there is a useful element to the bias in the > end. Because I happen to think CR got it pretty right, and the bias > is a side issue in the end. > --Vic While they provide nothing for statistical information on specific models, they probably do have enough data to see basic trends. You can find some interesting things if you dig into the charts and numbers they bury in the print. For example, over the 7 years that is a typical length of new car ownership, the average Ford has roughly 5 issues a CR reader would report in a survey, about the same as Nissan or Hyundai. The average Honda/Toyota owner would have roughly 3 problems reported by a CR subscriber. (I'll even give a margin of error of 1 problem, as the chart was small and integrating in my head is subject to mistakes these days). Granted, these could be minor or major problems, covered under warrantly or very expensive. There's no way to know from CR. Also, you still have the issue of self-sampling and and a non-scientific survey method. See the Chicago Tribune's "Dewey Defeats Truman" case study on why not to use data obtained in this manner...
From: Ed Pawlowski on 26 Nov 2009 22:02 "SMS" <scharf.steven(a)geemail.com> wrote in message > They aren't asking for a subscriber's opinion of one product versus > another, they're asking a series of very specific questions that ask what, > if any, problems an owner has had with their vehicle. > > There seems to be a perception that the CU survey ask questions like > 'which is more reliable, a Toyota or a Chevy.' There are two parts to the auto issue. One part is the survey, the other part is the editorial comment by their testers. IMO, the bias comes in the editorial part. Like the Suzuki rollover issue that was proven to be problematic with CR. The survey portion has some merit, but we don't know a lot of how the questions were answered. Do owners of some makes tend to forget about minor problems more or less than owners of other makes? One respondent may think nothing of the time the radio did not work for a week and had to be replaced and forget to mark it while another may be PO'd that one day driving under power lines he had static on his favorite station 150 miles away and he tells everyone about the crappy radio. .
From: SMS on 27 Nov 2009 05:26
caviller(a)my-deja.com wrote: > I'll bite. I'm looking at the April, 2009 auto issue. Let's take the > Ford Fusion on page 89. I see lots of red circles. I'm not seeing > them state any numbers aside from the model year and the "6" in V6. > No sample size for this model is given, though you claim it is always > stated. No margin of error for the reliability projection. Nothing > of statistical value whatsoever. You must still be getting the > special edition? Please share. They state the sample size for the whole survey, and they also state that they leave out models for which they get too low a number or responses for the data to be statistically valid. Fortunately the survey is so large that only really niche vehicles are left out for lack of data. > Well, I engaged in the amusement provided by helping to debunk your > anti-Saturn rhetoric and finding all your contradictions, anyway. LOL, sure you did. It's interesting that all the things I reported on so early turned out to be completely true, and resulted in recalls or special service campaigns by Saturn. You debunked nothing. But if it makes you feel good to think that you did, go right ahead believing it. Saturn's demise was a direct result of their basing an entire company on marketing hype that could not fool enough people to sustain the business, and could not overcome the fact that the vehicles were unreliable. When CR and J.D. Power pointed out these facts, you saw the same kind of sour grapes you see now with the claims of bias. |