The trick in a review is to make one’s personal opinions clear enough so as to allow the reader to be able to get a clear idea of what the car is about. Earlier this year I wrote a review (for a different web site) about a car I didn’t like. I made it clear why I didn’t like the car, and that I expected my opinion would be in the minority. I’ve had people told me “I bought one — I liked it for all the reasons you didn’t.” That, to me, makes it a successful review, because the readers were able to understand my preferences and opinions and derive a fair evaluation from the car. To quote from above:

“…the review still contained the necessary information to allow me to to decide that the Vette is the better of those 2 cars for someone with my preferences.”

Perfect.

Also bear in mind that we Web journalists have to deal with space constraints — I can’t say everything I want to about a car because if the review is too long, people won’t read it. (Take this comment chain — how many comments did you read, and how many did you scan?)

Another point *for* personal opinion in reviews:

“Recently driving a Chevy Aveo for a couple of days in LA found me thinking it suited that environment well enough and I certainly didn’t walk away from the experience with any scars emotionally or otherwise.”

Most any new car will seem fine if that’s the only one you drive. That’s why you can trust your friendly neighborhood car reviewer: He or she is usually familiar with most or all the cars in a given class, and can give a better opinion. I reviewed an Aveo and have to say that I liked tooling around town in it. It’s an OK car. But compare it to the Fit, Versa and Accent and it just falls apart. As a reviewer, we can’t just say “The Aveo is great, but the others are greater.” There has to be a better and a worse. Compared to what else is out there, the Aveo is worse.

Then you wrap the same engine and transmission in the body of the TT and suddenly, it can seriously compete with the Porsche Cayman

Very strange

“Reviewing a car is no different from assigning a grade to a student…I was a teaching assistant when I was still in grad school. If I were to assign grades in the same manner that TTAC authors assign stars, I would have been fired before the first semester was over.”

I really couldn’t disagree more. I too was a TA for an intro-level lab while in grad school. This particular ‘lab’ was not much more than a time to complete a worksheet-based assignment with very little hands-on ’science’ – and the questions were usually fill-in-the-blank with scattered short answer and multiple choice questions. When I graded these assignments, there was very little leeway; questions were usually either right or wrong. Rarely did I ‘bend’ the definition of ‘correct’ unless a question was poorly worded or confusing.

I see this as a polar opposite from car reviews. Sure, cars have their concrete qualities that can be precisely quantified – acceleration numbers, skid-pad figures, interior and exterior dimensions, engine displacement and power specs, and so on and so forth. But there’s so much more to a car review than simply stating the above facts.

Take ‘ride quality’ for example – that’s a mostly subjective opinion. A Buick owner might find a G37’s suspension too ’stiff’ and ‘jarring’, but to a Corvette owner, the G would probably seem ’supple’ and ‘forgiving’. It’s all relative. My wife absolutely hates the seats in my car. I love them, and happen to find them extremely comfortable. Some reviews harp on and on about ubiquitous interior ‘hard plastics’ – and others hardly mention it, despite their presence. Speaking of subjective – how about judging a car’s appearance?

I could go on and on, but I think you get the point…if I were to have graded my students on either subjective criteria like appearance or concrete data like ‘exterior dimensions’ I would have most certainly lost my job. Grading a car is really nothing like grading a student’s assignment – nor should it be. Some car particulars are easily quantified, but much of the perception is an emotional response to the experience. How that compares to grading an assignment with well-defined right and wrong answers, I’m just not sure.

Another poster also said that it seems as if some folks are confusing ‘bias’ with ‘context’ – and I think they’re correct. If Robert Farago had judged the latest Focus without any context of the previous car, or the version across the pond, people would have certainly found plenty to complain about. This current car might be ‘okay’ by very low standards – but how Ford has yet let another ‘hit’ car wither away has got to be addressed. How a car compares to its predecessor(s) is crucial in conveying its merits (or lack thereof) in a brief review, at least in my estimation.

On the point made that all modern cars are pretty much the same especially when we look back 40 years to the differences between makes and models. This has happened I think mainly because of governmental regulations. First came the pollution regulations, followed quickly by safety regulations and then followed by mileage regulations. Regulations tend to create uniformity since all manufacturers have to provide the identical solution. Ever since Audi began designing its cars in a wind tunnel to improve fuel efficiency, guess what everyone else joined in doing the same and the result was……..all cars end up looking the same. Somehow everyone gets the same answer when presenting the problem to a stream of moving air.

Brand identity now defines the automobile and there have been many comments on that subject on this site. So keep telling me what you think of various cars even though your personal bias may be showing. In actuality its your bias that I have come to see.

My point is that readers shouldn’t expect unbiased reviews about something as subjective as a car. It’s not like car reviewers are reporters covering presidential politics, where bias toward one political party or another can be detected and documented.

If you want to depend on CR’s little red circles to make your car-buying decisions for you, have fun in your Corolla.

But I don’t think CR has a “boredom” category or a “chances my mom would buy the same car” category. If people think that there are cars out there that never have any problems and CR can lead them to those cars…more power to them. But the internal combustion engine already works far better than it ever should have, and cars on the whole are far more reliable than they have any business being.

Where CR provides “data” compiled from owner surveys, TTAC and other sites and publications provide reviews that take into account the intangible stuff, the fun stuff. They make wild statements and strong judgements, and that’s what readers appreciate.

-Matt

I’m betting that for many of us, TTAC is part of our love of cars. On this end, I like getting the behind the scenes info from RF and the rest, and I check out other sites for video reviews and testing, some European and Aussie sites for cars we can’t get here and good ol’ Consumer Reports for at one time non-biased reviews and tests. The whole Toyota thing just blew up in their face!

There are some very gifted writers on this site and while some reviews do tend to border on written humor instead of an actual review, their info is some of the best out there. I like to think that if we are looking for just numbers and options, we’ll go to other sites to get that. If we want to know the honest truth about many cars out there, we’ll get it here.

Unless you can verify that every other luxury car in the price range lacks similar gaps inside and out (which you cant) then I dont see your point. Amazing how you are the only one who has been able to spot these major build quality issues. You are nitpicking because it is obviously disturbing to you that the press isnt using age old stererotypical terms to descrive this car. Sorry, but Cadillac doesnt make land yachts anymore and their interior quality is wholly competitive. You have issues with the cars styling and that is your right, but lets not pass these complaints off as legitimate objective flaws. I think the styling on the M45, GS and IS is all wrong but I wouldnt say there arent world class just because I think some awkward design choices were made. You are criticizing the interior on a car that has been highly praised, even by those who hate GM products generally and it is very apparent that nothing Cadillac could’ve created would’ve satisfied you short of a BMW with a wreath and crest on the hood.

Thanks for your thoughtful post. As always, it made me think.

These people are experts in testing drive cars for one day. If I were to drive a car for one day only, I would definitely trust their judgment.

Unfortunately, since myself and many other people intend to keep a car for at least several years, we will have to trust CR more.

During my subscription period, Road&Track had published a list of all the staff cars twice. Most were your typical CR top picks. The chief had a MB E-class, I believe. And that’s it. The VW junks that consistently got high scores were nowhere to be found. That’s the voting by wallet by these professionals.

I was a teaching assistant when I was still in grad school. If I were to assign grades in the same manner that TTAC authors assign stars, I would have been fired before the first semester was over.

well if you said its not world class it must be true. Forget about all the accolades and awards. Forget about the fact that cars like the Accord, G35, MDX and a host of others have gaps between the dash and doors. I mean if the CTS has a 3mm gap its not world class period. I better let MT and C&D and everyone else know they made a mistake. Great styling, great powertrains, two trannies, AWD, state of the art stereo and technology- yeah the car sucks. Thanks for clearing that up.

Objectivity shouldn’t be the goal of journalists or car reviewers, to the extent that they can consider themselves journalists. The goals should be fairness and accuracy.

Reviewers have driven many cars, and should consider themselves the authority on what makes a car good or bad or neither.

I don’t really buy all the first car faux-psychology crap. My first car was a Pontiac. Think you’ll see me on a Pontiac lot anytime soon?

-Matt

For me, handling is the #1 parameter on my car buying list, so a “neutral” review that describes a car’s squishy suspension as “a smooth, compliant ride” is absolutely useless to me. TTAC reviews tend to be quite biased towards handling, which suits me well, but makes them less useful for the average car buyer who would never notice the difference.

That said, I must say I think brand-bias is more harmful, and makes us puppets in the manufacturers hands rather than objective evaluators.

Having always been a BMW nut, my own deficiency in this area became apparent when I sat in a new accord, and I noticed the interior actually felt more luxurious than my BMW. Since in my mind up to that point BMW and Honda are in non-overlapping categories, that took a while for my mind to cope with it.

A different example lies in beauty. I have always really liked the taillight design of the last gen sebring (the way they curve in), but having had that car as a rental many times, my mind has a very hard time seeing that car as beautiful. Contrast that with the uglyness of some recent BMWs, which my mind tries hard to get used to, because, well, they’re BMWs. Brand image makes me perceive cars as more “solid” mechanically without having any true data for it.

The fact that your mind has these preconceptions, and will use them to “bend” every input to be consistent with it, is the biggest impediment to optimal judgements.

Taking the 08 focus as an example, Rob’s award of one star was justified (after driving it myself) because it was no real advance on my 02 Focus. Even worse it struck me that it looked very similar to the Saturn Ion.

Mismatched panel gaps on the CTS? who cares? Its RWD, Has a Six speed Manual and a good V6. perfect buy a year old after the 1st owner takes the hit.

Delete the editorial. It’s a waste of cyber space.

Car reviewers seem to base what is right and wrong on their personal favorite cars as opposed to what people in a particular segment want. If it doesnt steer like a BMW its a bad car. If it doesnt rev as high as a Honda its lackluster. Automobile magazine criticized the new CTS because it wasnt European enough. They said the exterior and interior were too shiny and too fancy for a luxury car that was meant to compete with the C class and 3 series. It never occured to them that the CTS is American and is supposed to be. Lincoln tried to copy the German formula with the LS back in 2000 and we see how that turned out. Cadillac went in their own direction and some feel the CTS isn’t quite there because they didnt make a carbon copy of the 3 series.

I’ve had similar feelings walking through the San Jose auto show a few years ago. Stripped of all the BS, which oddly enough a second tier auto show does, most modern vehicles are pretty boring. I include Jaguars and modern Rolls Royces in the boring category. Sit down in a 1965 Jaguar 420G and a 1965 Cadillac Sedan deVille sometime and you can hardly believe both were sold at the same time in the same price range. Totally different vehicles with an entirely different design and engineering ethos. Drive them back to back and they are worlds apart. Now do the same excercise with a Jaguar XJ8 and a Cadillac CTS-V8 and you will be surprised how similar they are both under the hood and in driving experience, and those are two of the most different cars you can find today.

In 1965 a Volkswagen, Toyota, and Chevrolet seemed to almost come from different planets. Today the real differences between a 2008 Passat, Camry and Malibu are similar to the minimal differences between a 1965 Oldsmobile, Pontiac and Buick.

Group think has taken the automotive world down a rather narrow tunnel.

Biases are unreasonable, personal criteria. A biased opinion is based upon a pre-determined conclusion. Biased opinions tend to ignore facts that are inconvenient. They use data sparingly and selectively, using facts only to the extent that are useful in supporting a conclusion that was reached before the facts were even available. Those who rely heavily on anecdotes and gut instinct to prove their points are almost always biased, by definition.

An informed opinion draws conclusions based upon a broad base of factual information, which is measured against reasonable benchmarks. An informed opinion will rely upon a variety of facts that are aggregated into conclusions that are logical in relation to the facts. While it is possible for reasonable people to disagree on what conclusions to draw from those facts, the facts themselves should be demonstrable and the benchmarks should be reasonable compared to the norm.

It is the job of the reviewer to consider the vehicle in the context of the PR message to see whether it lives up to the spin. It is also fair to measure it against enthusiast credentials, if only so that the enthusiasts understand what compromises would be necessary to live with it if they were to drive it. It is not only reasonable to compare a vehicle to other vehicles in its class, to the overall marketplace and to the promises of the manufacturer, but that is exactly what a good reviewer should do.

The article erroneously claims that judging a BMW 1-series based upon its claimed 2002 heritage would be emotional, even though this message is being communicated (at great expense) by BMW itself to its prospective customers. If BMW throws down the gauntlet by raising expectations along those lines, then of course it should be judged accordingly. Reviewers absolutely should test the car in part on this basis, to ensure that car manufacturers don’t make a habit of making promises that they cannot keep. BMW can and should expect to benefit or suffer from the consequences of its advertisements, and it’s the media’s job to make sure that this happens.

There is likewise nothing at all biased about Mr. Farago criticizing the Focus for, well, just about everything. In one of its press releases, Ford describes the Focus as a vehicle that “brings an expressive look, a refined and flexible interior and a higher level of driving enjoyment to an evolving small car market,” and boasts that “the redesigned Focus will play an important role in Ford Motor Company’s resurging car portfolio.” Yet it was demonstrated in the review that there are other vehicles in its class that beat it in just about every way. Mr. Farago did his job as a reviewer to point out that the product does not match Ford Motor Company hype, down to the last yard of electrician’s tape used in the engine bay. TTAC would have been falling down on the job if it hadn’t made that clear.

Overall, I find that most accusations of bias are the car enthusiast’s equivalent of Godwin’s Law. It’s easier to accuse the writer of bias (Godwin’s equivalent of “Nazi”) than it is to debate the conclusions on their merits.

It’s not nice to say it, but I find that the hand that points an accusatory finger at a reviewer usually has three fingers pointing back at a disgruntled fan boy who is offended at being on the losing side of a review. If you want to see where the emotion is coming from, that’s where you’ll find it.

When we are faced with contradictory opinions on a vehicle, there is a simple solution: go check it out for yourself! If you are such a follower that you can’t bring yourself to disagree with your own chosen slant on the world, I guess you shouldn’t bother, because you can’t change your own mind if you are afraid others might not approve.

If you are saying that you give a pass to a Chinese car because they are new at it, then you are not giving it any truer a review than you give the Focus slanted by your irritation at Ford’s platform choice.

So the question remains: Is the Focus realy a crappy car and is the Malibu really a good car – objectively and without the anger or surprise?

Sorry, but I’ll take my TTAC as usual; straight up and on the rocks.