Bias

I brought up in my last post the bias found in Consumer Reports. Their recent evaluation granting all ten categories with Japanese vehicles has raised a lot of questions within the industry. Consumer Reports recently posted a rebuttal to the criticism here. Althought its a rebuttal, one point clearly outlined the bias I was talking about.

Of the domestic manufacturers, Ford has the strongest position in the heart of the sedan market. Even though the Focus’ design is six years old, it was just edged out by the redesigned 2006 Honda Civic as our top-rated small car. We still think the Focus is more enjoyable to drive, with an excellent balance of nimble handling and a comfortable ride, but the Civic is more refined, fuel efficient, and has better crash protection. The Five Hundred is an extremely accommodating, if highly understated, car. The Ford Fusion/Mercury Milan did very well in our tests, but since they are new designs, we can not predict reliability yet. The Fusion/Milan’s decidedly lackluster IIHS crash test results give pause, as well. Likewise, the Ford Freestyle--with impressive interior packaging that offers good room for seven passengers--would have made this list, but our tested AWD model has below average first-year reliability.

That's funny. The Fusion was pretty much eliminated because it was new and reliability could not be predicted -- so it wasn't able to prove itself. But, this wasn't a problem for the new Honda Civic. It was presumed to automatically have superb reliaibility. Just as I have said earlier, Consumer Reports assumes American cars are crap and foreign cars are amazing. I'm not saying that the Fusion should have won, I wasn't involved in the testing and can't produce an objective conclusion. What am I saying is why did the Civic get a pass on reliability? This is the bias.

UPDATE: Here's an image of JD Power's brand dependability study. So, keep on buying your cheap Kia's and Hyundai's and trendy VW's cause you think GM vehicles are unreliable -- and I'll continue to laugh at you.

Tags: Bias, Consumer Reports, & Cars