[wjones14]

Originally Posted by 17rsvert

Not Camaro owners, the competition. False ratings are an epidemic on Amazon. Set up same fake account, boost your own products rating and give 1 or 2 stars to the competition. Lots of money at stake either way.

None of us here, including me, like reading that the Camaro is the lowest ranking car in CR's reliability ratings.

But it seems you're suggesting that bad ratings for the Camaro could be the result of a bunch of fake accounts created by people saying they own a Camaro, just for the purpose of giving it a bad rating? And why would there be more Camaro haters than say, Dodge Challenger, or any other car you care to name?

According to this article CR has 6 million paid subscribers. Not sure if the free accounts even participate in the surveys? Does anyone know?

[Number 3]

Originally Posted by JROC

That makes a lot of sense actually. There needs to be a way of verifying that someone reviewing a product actually owns it before CR lists it as legit. With cars this should be an especially easy thing to verify with things like VIN #'s, insurance records, and vehicle registration requirements, etc.

As I mentioned, you only need to be a subscriber to take the survey. If I recall correctly, years ago, you were not required to own the vehicle to submit a survey.

This is what is different between JDPower and CR.

All of these have to be taken with a big grain of salt. Unless you have warranty data it's really hard to judge. And even then, you will find some customers don't take everything back for warranty. They just put up with it. For example on my SS Sedan, rusting rear brake rotors was a big deal. I had them replaced under warranty with a new specially coated rotor. How many cars do you see that aren't coated and just rusty? A lot. So a lot of people don't care about some things more picky owners will complain about and take back for warranty.

I recall in JDPower many years ago the Buick Century was near the top of the list. The Buick Regal was closer to the bottom? Difference? Pretty much sportier appearance and bucket seats. Built by the same people in the same plant using mostly the same parts. The real difference? Customer expectations.

Another anomaly? The Chevrolet Impala used to always rate higher than the Toyota Camry. Why? Mostly because the people buying Impalas thought it was a great car and probably the best Impala they had ever owned. But better than a Camry? Only if you've never owned a Camry.

The other perception I know people have that aren't knowledgeable is when they have a problem with their Honda or Toyota will often go, "man imagine the problems I'd be having if I bought an American brand". With CR it's somewhat a self fulfilling prophecy. I'm a savvy quality kind of person buying a quality car recommended by CR so how could it possibly not be the highest quality car.

[HighIron]

Originally Posted by Number 3

The other perception I know people have that aren't knowledgeable is when they have a problem with their Honda or Toyota will often go, "man imagine the problems I'd be having if I bought an American brand". With CR it's somewhat a self fulfilling prophecy. I'm a savvy quality kind of person buying a quality car recommended by CR so how could it possibly not be the highest quality car.

Bingo. Big case of cognitive dissonance among the smug, pseudo savvy types.

[DIYguy]

We bought an Audi years ago based almost solely upon its excellent (at the time) CR ratings.
All green filled-in circles. Hey, that's great!
We had been a subscriber to their magazine for a number of years and had bought several other major items also based upon their ratings of them.
In the end none of them were particularly good.

After owning it for a little less than three years we dumped the Audi, taking a bath on the price in the process.
It was one of the worst, most unreliable, most unreasonable, expensive to fix vehicles we have ever owned before or since, and that includes a 1972 Vega (I know, our bad).
And the things that broke were not mere nuisance items either.
Head gasket, coolant hoses (very, very expensive by the way), alternator, fuel injection pump, rear suspension components, in-tank fuel filter, melted fuse block, and the list goes on.
I can only conclude that the originally good ratings were from representatives of Audi or from nose-in-the-air types who had overly high opinions of them simply because they were not domestic.

We allowed our CR subscription to lapse and have only occasionally looked at an issue after that and would not trust their ratings of tooth brushes, much less cars.

So far, except for the throttle body (recently replaced) and a couple of endemic rattles I have yet to find, our Camaro has been very good and we are very, very happy with it.

FWIW.......

[17rsvert]

Originally Posted by wjones14

None of us here, including me, like reading that the Camaro is the lowest ranking car in CR's reliability ratings.

But it seems you're suggesting that bad ratings for the Camaro could be the result of a bunch of fake accounts created by people saying they own a Camaro, just for the purpose of giving it a bad rating? And why would there be more Camaro haters than say, Dodge Challenger, or any other car you care to name?

According to this article CR has 6 million paid subscribers. Not sure if the free accounts even participate in the surveys? Does anyone know?

Of those 6 million, what percentage own new cars? I'm sure a very small percentage take the time to fill out the survey. Most newer cars are reliable enough to score pretty good overall, so it does not take many bad scores to skew the results. Think about it, the Camaro is a relatively small sales volume car, and of those owners how many subscribe to CR and how many of those people bother to fill out the survey? For a few thousand dollars in CR subscriptions, one could flood the survey with a hundred bad ratings, enough to easily put a car at the bottom. Don't forget, like Amazon, there is a lot of money at stake. Just my opinion. I have grown to distrust human beings whenever the internet and money cross paths.

[arpad_m]

Originally Posted by Number 3

POWER EQUIPMENT AND ACCESSORIES: Cruise control, clock, warning lights, body control module, keyless entry, wiper motor or washer, tire pressure monitor, interior or exterior lights, horn, gauges, 12V power plug, USB port, alarm or security system, remote engine start, heated or cooled seats.

Thanks, Number 3 (I do feel a bit bad for not researching this myself ).

So their rating was 1/5 on these items. Not a single pervasive issue I've seen here or heard of personally on any one of these items. There was one person with a broken USB module and a few sporadic issues with keyless entry, mostly due to depleted fob batteries. A defective gauge cluster or two, people bitching about the wireless charger design (but GM even released upgraded hardware for under $100 that's compatible with newer phones), and that's really it. 1/5.

I still can't help being absolutely baffled if this rating was serious, it does feel

[Number 3]

Originally Posted by arpad_m

Thanks, Number 3 (I do feel a bit bad for not researching this myself ).

So their rating was 1/5 on these items. Not a single pervasive issue I've seen here or heard of personally on any one of these items. There was one person with a broken USB module and a few sporadic issues with keyless entry, mostly due to depleted fob batteries. A defective gauge cluster or two, people bitching about the wireless charger design (but GM even released upgraded hardware for under $100 that's compatible with newer phones), and that's really it. 1/5.

I still can't help being absolutely baffled if this rating was serious, it does feel

I think it's more sample size. Camaro is already small share of the market and then considering the number of subscribers that actually own or would submit a survey on the Camaro is maybe even smaller.

Tough to tell.

Couldn't find anything on their website that described what 1/5 actually meant.

[HighIron]

Originally Posted by BuckeyeROC

Consumer Reports is great for vacuum cleaner suggestions. Absolutely worthless for cars. Who gives a crap what a bunch of Karens think about a vehicle.

That, and maybe breakfast bars and the like. I've heard the "Karen" referred to before and never know what it meant, so your post got me curious to do some internet reading. Boy, spot on.


"Karens" do seem to be the quintessential "consumer" types, and as applied to cars, their opinions easily dismissed.


"I want to talk to the manager...."

[Petrol Head]

As someone whose owned both Hondas and GM cars over the years, I would submit that there was a time indeed when the Camaro was junk in terms of quality. The interior plastics, how the body panel gaps lined up, how long it took before the car became a rattle box. Until the 4th gen those were all things that came along with the car. Most owners overlooked it.

At the same time Honda was making cars with high quality interior plastics that never creaked for 200,000 miles and all the body panel gaps were minimal and consistent.

My current car is a 2009 Accord. It has cheap plastic interior that creaks and rattles and started doing it after about 2 years old.

The 6th gen Camaro’s interior is light years ahead of my Accord. Yet CR would still give it 1/5 and my interior a 5/5.

Completely mind blowing.

My Mom’s brand new LaCrosse (which GM has unfortunately ended production) has Lexus levels of interior quality. Her 2016 Corvette interior is superior to mine. I know it should be as a car that cost three times an Accord and is in a completely different stratosphere, but I still hear people whine about the Corvette interior. It’s like, what the bejeepers are you talking about????

GM has come eons ahead, and Honda has regressed a bit, in the last 20 years to the point there’s no difference in quality between them and Honda.

Consumer Reports never called me. :shrug:

[17rsvert]

Originally Posted by Petrol Head

GM has come eons ahead, and Honda has regressed a bit, in the last 20 years to the point there’s no difference in quality between them and Honda.

As I said, Honda is now assembled (more or less) by the same labor pool as GM. Alot of the individual component part design responsibility is handed off to suppliers, and those suppliers will manufacture parts for anyone from whom they win the contract. But old perceptions are tough to change.

[redcoats1976]

my buddy had one of those quality challengers.at 3 months/2000 miles it burned to the ground as he pulled out of his driveway.nuff said?

[dpevans]

If you read how they conduct the evaluation if the sample size is small (which I would assume the Camaro is) then they use older data and similar model data. They question CR subscribers. I would assume without being able to see the feedback the trans problem several years ago is still having an impact on results. A more accurate survey would be the one the manufacturers conduct but they won't share that data.

[metros11]

Originally Posted by arpad_m

Sure, but 1/5? That's basically saying the paint is a POS on most cars with blots, streaks, missed door jambs etc. Maybe this did happen initially in 2016, but none of the Camaros I have personally seen had 1/5 paint quality.

Maybe there is something to these ratings that I'm not privy to, say, the scaling has a huge offset and say 1/5 is actually 70-75% quality.

My '18 1LE is currently at Nielsen Chevy getting the bumper redone, because it was a factory repaint and likely wasn't prepped right. They are also touching up an edge on a fender where the paint just peeled. On top of that, my doors have orange peel galore. The paint is the absolute worst, but it's honestly the only complaint I have.

I don't get the overall reliability ratings at all though. We all know about the A8 issues, okay, but what else?

[MrChrisLS3]

The break down is really helpful. CR, as has been said, is member survey. Something, always, to keep in mind, is user error when it comes to things like infotainment, power equipment, etc. 8 times out 10, features of a vehicle are often either missed or forgotten during the demo, followed by a very poor delivery, which is often because the buyer is just ready to leave. When these things aren't properly demonstrated at delivery, the customer has a hard time getting things to work. Now it becomes a service issue, and the customer would rather blame the car than admit ignorance. So, the car gets bad marks in the survey.

Whereas JD Power uses service reports for problem cars. While many of the issues reported to service are these false claims, it is by far more reliable information overall.

Then there is the definition of "reliability". To me, driving the car in for service for a pesky rattle, or lack luster paint around the hinges, is not a reliability issue. Having the car towed in because it won't run is.

Now, on the Gen 6, the reports about the A8, caused me to pass on cars until I found the right car with a manual. The perception that the A8 transmission will ultimately fail at some point is a huge factor for those that will not drive a manual transmission.