Are people that fussed about reliability surveys?
Discussion
Whenever I see these published the mst desirable cars are generally toward the bottom (Land Rover group, BMW, Audi, Mercedes) and the less desirable cars (Kia, Hyundai, Skoda) are toward the top.
Do people use these to guide a purchasing decision or are the sample sizes and data collection such that there is little actual factual in them?
For me, I place no store by them whatsoever, I've had very reliable Renaults and unreliable Fords.
Do people use these to guide a purchasing decision or are the sample sizes and data collection such that there is little actual factual in them?
For me, I place no store by them whatsoever, I've had very reliable Renaults and unreliable Fords.
I think they are useful, but one needs to understand exactly what is being measured in the survey.
For example, average cost of repair - fine, but parts for an S-class are probably going to cost more than parts for a Fiesta, so that doesn't tell you about reliability per se.
Also, a lot of them are produced by warranty companies, which is fine except that it excludes all the cars where the owners didn't take out a warranty or the warranty didn't pay out. And obviously cars under manufacturer warranty don't appear.
I think that customer satisfaction surveys like JD Power are a good guide when buying new or nearly new. Once you enter shed territory you are better off going by the condition of individual cars.
For example, average cost of repair - fine, but parts for an S-class are probably going to cost more than parts for a Fiesta, so that doesn't tell you about reliability per se.
Also, a lot of them are produced by warranty companies, which is fine except that it excludes all the cars where the owners didn't take out a warranty or the warranty didn't pay out. And obviously cars under manufacturer warranty don't appear.
I think that customer satisfaction surveys like JD Power are a good guide when buying new or nearly new. Once you enter shed territory you are better off going by the condition of individual cars.
AmitG said:
I think that customer satisfaction surveys like JD Power are a good guide when buying new or nearly new.
The problem with them, is that they are hugely skewed by expectations. If someone buys a BMW expecting it to be reliable and it breaks down twice in the first year, they'll score it badly. If someone buys a Rover expecting it to be rubbish and it breaks down twice in the first year, they'll probably be reasonably happy. All very true guys but these surveys do give a reasonable suggestion of what works/who is happy.
They might not be infallible but certainly better than nothing - some marques always do much better than others no matter which survey it is.
It's not always the highest priority on my list as I never buy new cars but if I was shelling out my own money I'd certainly be taking it into account.
They might not be infallible but certainly better than nothing - some marques always do much better than others no matter which survey it is.
It's not always the highest priority on my list as I never buy new cars but if I was shelling out my own money I'd certainly be taking it into account.
Thankyou4calling said:
Whenever I see these published the mst desirable cars are generally toward the bottom (Land Rover group, BMW, Audi, Mercedes) and the less desirable cars (Kia, Hyundai, Skoda) are toward the top.
Do people use these to guide a purchasing decision or are the sample sizes and data collection such that there is little actual factual in them?
For me, I place no store by them whatsoever, I've had very reliable Renaults and unreliable Fords.
Many of these surveys are customer satisfaction, not just reliability.Do people use these to guide a purchasing decision or are the sample sizes and data collection such that there is little actual factual in them?
For me, I place no store by them whatsoever, I've had very reliable Renaults and unreliable Fords.
Personally I have two main issues with them.
1. A failure for reliability often isn't qualified in what type of thing went wrong, nor does it consider the type of vehicle or the type of use the vehicle is being used for.
Example:
Honda Jazz has 1 gearbox, 1 diff and 2 drive shafts. To generally drive at moderate speeds, with low vehicle mass on good quality roads.
Land Rover Discovery 4 has 2 gearboxes, 3 diffs and 6 drive shafts. To top it all many are used for hauling or towing, quite a few do go off road and are used on a variety of surfaces, not just tarmac roads. And even under normal use the components are still having to lug around 2.7 tonnes.
If you had the simple ratio of 1 in every 6 drive shafts fail for both the Jazz and the D4, you'd see 3x as many failures for D4 despite the same reliability of the component.
2. And this is my biggest gripe. Every time I've ignored the published "list" and actually looked at the underlying scores and figures, then I'm yet to see one of these surveys where last place hasn't scored very similar to first place.
It's the forcing them into a rank order that misleads.
For example, you might have a score out of 100.
First got 92, last got 76. Yet the reality is, you actually wouldn't consider either to be bad results unless they were below 55.
Thankyou4calling said:
Whenever I see these published the mst desirable cars are generally toward the bottom (Land Rover group, BMW, Audi, Mercedes) and the less desirable cars (Kia, Hyundai, Skoda) are toward the top.
I think that probably sums it up very well. People will always buy the more desirable cars despite of a few reliability niggles. The manufacturers of the less desirable cars promote them in areas they know they can win on, so things like reliability, long warranties and lots of toys in relatively low spec cars become their selling points.Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff