Originally Posted by Walter Raulerson

no but shuddering, infotainment failures, rubber moldings not fitting, ORANGE PEEL all add up

Originally Posted by patentcad

The knee jerk reactions here are so predictable. Anybody who puts CR down for whatever leftward bias they may have doesn't get it. I don't think that contaminates their product analysis for the most part. You have to take their stuff with a grain of salt. Were it not for CR, there would be no place to turn to for unfiltered data on stuff like car reliability or objective comparisons of consumer products. They get it wrong sometimes, but mostly they're pretty accurate.

But if you're happy with the steady flow of corporate propaganda and bullshit with no information to counter that, by all means, keep your mind closed.

Originally Posted by mschuyler

Consumer Reports' "research" consists of sending out surveys to members, i.e.: People who subscribe to the magazine, and compiling the check marks of returned surveys. The problems with this are many. It's not a scientific survey. It is not shown that CR subscribers are representative of the total population of corvette owners. By definition, it's not a random sample. You have a severe sampling problem right there. Further, since CR does not publish the raw data, there's no way to determine just what this means. Did 500 owners of corvettes return the survey, or did five? You'll never know. It doesn't matter whether CR is left or right; the survey itself is not scientific. If you want a better sense of reliability, try True Delta and you'll get a much better sense of how well corvette does. If you rely on CR as THE source of reliable and valid information about cars, you're not doing yourself any favors. Spreading the myth that CR provides reliable information is a disservice to others.

https://www.truedelta.com/Chevrolet-...frequencies-52

Originally Posted by Foosh

No, not likely. The NUMMI Chevys and Toyotas were built nose-to-tail on the same assembly line with identical power trains, electronics, etc. Only badges, grilles, lights, and trim were different. Same car, but one had a Nova badge, and the other said Corolla. There were less differences in those cars than between base, Z51, GS, and Z06 built on the same assembly line at BG.

The vastly different ratings were purely a function of owner expectations based upon brand reputations at the time. Toyotas were supposed to be perfect, and Chevy's were supposed to be crap. That's the problem w/ self-report ratings.

Originally Posted by Skid Row Joe

OK, so when does a manufacturers' recall take place then? Are they (recalls) voluntary, or because of a Government Agency directing the manufacturer to do the recall? Is the A8 a likely recall item, for instance?

Originally Posted by golden2husky

Did you expect much different? When responses start with rock-stupid comments like "lib rag" you know you are not addressing someone with a mind tuned to critical thinking.

Originally Posted by golden2husky

True Delta is a great source, frankly the only thing that CR has over them is sample size. What makes TD better is that it make it clear how to categorize the problem types and it updates four times a year. CR, between the time delay from collecting data to publication you can have data that is over a year old. Interesting to note that brands like Toyota who consistently score high have reliability scores that match TD very closely. Brands with less consistency can show up as better in TD because problems that were corrected early in the model run have three additional data collection points to reflect the improvement. CR does not have the ability to show that.

Originally Posted by patentcad

So the 2018 Consumer Reports (CR) annual auto issue just landed in my mailbox, and least reliable late model used cars in the sports car category goes to...... wait for it..... the 2014 Chevrolet Corvette.

First off, please understand that I own a 2017 Stingray Coupe (Z-51) stick, and I've had only one repair under warranty over 14 months and 9500 miles: a windshield washer fluid pump (the one that pumps the spray onto your windscreen when you push or pull the wiper lever). Before that my first Corvette was a 2007 C6 that really didn't have any problems over 12,000 miles/18 months. I subscribe to 3 car magazines in addition to Consumer Reports. I take what CR says with a grain of salt, when it comes to cars they're kind of white coat dorks.

On the other hand, Consumer Reports is generally accurate, not in anybody's pocket (they buy every car they test @ full retail, they have never accepted advertising from anybody) and provide revealing data and analysis on cars not available anywhere else. And that's how CR gets auto data reliability: surveys of their large reader base. Their observations on the Corvette are generally accurate in my view: they complain about the reliability issues and the 'omnipresent tire noise' (that latter comment is 100% true, what a face palm in my C7, I purchased sound deadening mats from a Corvette Forum vendor that largely remedied that). On the other hand they whine about the car requiring 'acrobatic skills to get in and out of' (it's a high performance car similar to a Ferrari, what do you idiots want and AARP wheelchair hoist?) and the 'vague manual shifter' (my M7 feels great).

All that said, and as we all know, Corvette owners LOVE their cars. Which is ALSO reflected in CR data, it's consistently one of the top cars when they ask 'would you buy another one?' But of course. Where else can you get a car that offers all this @ that price, new or used? You can't. Moreover, even though my car is a daily driver from say April through November, it's hard own a 2-seater car with limited winter driving capabilities like a C7 unless it's an extra car. So I don't RELY on the car, if it needs repairs, it's far less inconvenient than if it's one of our cars that do the heavy lifting (2017 Toyota Prius Prime, 2018 Subaru Crosstrek 2.0 Ltd).

What really bothers me about C7 reliability are the issues with the A8 trans and the Z06 cooling issues. I feel bad for those owners and it hurts the whole brand to have those issues. And it's a shame because if you own a C7 that's reliable, you see how great the car can be. I'm 60 years old now and I've owned an awful lot of cars (30+) since I got my first car @ age 19. When I was a kid I used to do my own oil changes and tune-ups, then I worked as car salesman from 1983-1991 (Mercedes, Jaguar), I've always loved and read about cars, that's why I've owned so many different ones, and I've watched them evolve over 4 decades. In 2018 the least reliable car is still VERY reliable. So with all these C7 issues, my guess is that it impacts <5% of owners. I hope it's that few. But if GM has sold around 125,000 C7 units (that's pretty close I think), 5% is like 6,000 pissed off Corvette owners driving late model cars.

GM can get it right, and they mostly do. I just hope they can do better going forward.

Originally Posted by ersatz928

So, below is the actual Consumers Report 2002 Reliability Data for the Toyota Corolla, and the Chevy/Geo Prizm, which were basically the same car (other than trim/badges/cosmetics) built side-by-side at the Toyota/GM NUMMI plant in California.

Data seems pretty unbiased to me........

Originally Posted by patentcad

I never even heard of True Delta, thanks for the link.