On Friday, December 28, 2012 8:21:51 AM UTC-5, BAR wrote:
In article ,

says...


You stupid jackass...I purchased a 1977 model...after Consumer Reports praised the 1st year new Aspen/Volarie models of 1976. All the problems revealed themselves after I bought mine.



This is why most of those ratings from Consumer Reports and JD Power are
useless. I laugh every time I hear a commercial where they tout the
car's high marks from a JD Power Initial Quality report. What they don't
tell you is that this survey was taken within the first 3 months of
ownership. Most people are still in the honeymoon phase of their car
purchase for the first 6 months and they often refuse to criticize their
purchase decision.

Some of their tests of new items are somewhat valid, but the car test results are about as useful as most of the R&T or C&D tests. Which is to say, a little bit of info surrounded by a lot of biased fluff.

CR's reliability info on 3-5 year old cars is generally good, though. That doesn't help much in buying new.

Mostly, CR and JD is helpful for people that can't think on their own.