Consumer Reports Issues Domestics-Only List. Why?

by Robert Farago

Published: January 6th, 2009

consumer reports issues domestics only list why

Automotive News [sub]: “The magazine normally recommends cars in its April issue. But it singled out eight Detroit 3 vehicles early because consumers may be concerned about reliability while General Motors and Chrysler LLC seek federal assistance, said David Champion, the magazine’s chief car tester. ‘We’re only about halfway through our testing, so it’s not a complete list,’ he said. ‘But because of the public interest, we thought it would be useful.”” Huh? Since when is it Consumer Reports’ job to allay consumer fears about the reliability of the products produced by a small group of automakers, especially in response to an industry-wide event? In other words, why the special treatment? Even if it’s all about catering to a public need– remembering that Consumer Reports is a non-profit organization and there is no statistical data to support this position– CR’s special issue increases the psychological polarization between domestic and import-branded vehicles. And that’s not a good thing– for the domestics. If nothing else, the D2.8’s abject inability to identify the difference between quality relative to each other and quality compared to the wider car market has contributed to their failure. Anyway, the “winners” in the gallery below and/or after the jump.

“Consumer Reports named the V-6 Chevrolet Malibu LTZ as its top-rated Detroit 3 vehicle and also selected the Cadillac DTS. The other six winners were Ford Motor cars: the Ford Fusion SEL and Mercury Milan Premier, Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable, and Lincoln MKZ and Ford Taurus X. No Chrysler vehicles were recommended.”

See what I mean?

Robert Farago

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2 of 41 comments

Lokki on Jan 06, 2009
"I can see a rationale behind the story. Right now, you can get some really big bargains on many of these cars. CR’s mission is to help you get value, and there are likely a lot of CR readers thinking about going for one of these deals right now. Knowing which ones to avoid would be good info." I agree with Landcrusher. I also think that it's a good marketing gimmick for them too as the news is guaranteed to pick up the list and mention CR's name. That's free advertising, folks. As for CR itself, yeah, I still subcribe but every month I wonder why I do. I would prefer to only get their web version, and skip the paper since there's nothing to read it the magazine. Ever since Bose sued their pants off years ago, they're afraid to publish their testing methods and that was the only interesting thing to read in the rag. Their current value? Only in generating statistical reports on reliability, which is being over taken by True Delta et al. As for helping to choose products their reports are of little value. One of the things I stumbled across in their Site is a blog where readers were complaining that CR won't provide any tests on mattresses... CR's answer was that it's too hard for them to do. Ok.... then why do we need CR?

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Davey49 on Jan 07, 2009

The CTS was deemed too unreliable to be recommended. Otherwise it scores pretty high CTS- 84 points out of 100 STS- 77 points The Lambdas score 74 points All are unreliable CR to me is by far the best place to read auto reviews. Because they don't focus so much on "performance" and track times but will tell you if you're going to bump your head every time you pick something out of the trunk. Plus they don't do brakestand starts so acceleration runs are more realistic. Lokki- you obviously didn't read the mattress blog or you would know the reason why.

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