Denon, Yamaha or Marantz Receiver

[Woochifer]

This is my point though at least there are SOME actual numbers for cars. the fact that they're not specific numbers is no help.

If I had a BMW I might bring it in for something totally anal where as with the Cavelier it may be that the transmission fell out --both count as a customer complaint both count as a service -- yet it is obvious which one is a bigger POS. Performance requires more work that is not oging to stop someone from owning a Bugatti...even if it's in the shop every 300km of driving.

You obviously have very limited understanding of statistical principles. The scenario that you point out is nothing but a hypothetical conjured more out of your imagination than reality. Your opinion over which one is a bigger POS is also just that, unsubstantiated opinion.

I was pointing out that the so called European cars that supposedly suck worse than American cars are OWNED by American companies. BMW and Volkswagen were not mentioned in the article and Mercedes has had issues for over a decade --The Lemon Aid supports Consumer Reports on that count. However the first three years of the Ford Focus the lemon Aid thinks is if not the worst car on the road it's right down there. The American owned Consumer Reports does not seem to indicate that.

Oh, don't let facts spoil a good conspiracy story. BMW WAS mentioned in the linked article (the problems with the 7 series have been reported elsewhere as well), and Volkswagen's reliability problems the past four or so years are well documented in the Consumer Reports auto issue and in the pages of various business magazines that have been predicting that VW's reliability problems might shortcircuit their comeback (and last year, their sales dropped by 12 percent, well above the industrywide decline). And contrary to what you might think, the Ford Focus was on Consumer Reports' list of cars to avoid for the first three years. But, with improved reliability on the newer models, last year they put the Focus on their recommended cars list, because other than the early reliability problems, the Focus was their top rated compact car. And what does Consumer Reports' American ownership have to do with anything? If they had some kind of bias, why would Japanese cars consistently rank highly on their lists?

The problem is that Consumer Reports is polling subscribers. If they poll 700,000 people maybe 10,000 of them own a European car. The stats finding would have a much smaller sampling of Euro cars and the results far leass meaningfull. Any basic stats course covers this and naturally the American owned newspeaper with American interests lie by omission and readers are too ignorant to find out all of the numbers. And before Woochifer gets on my case by saying I pulled 10,000 out my ass surely even he knows that the big three outsell all of the Euro cars combined by a huge margin WITHIN the the US market. Either way if they don't provide a BREAKDOWN of the numbers it's meaningless.

That's a load of horses**t and either you know it and are distorting facts to make an argument, or you truly are clueless about survey research and statistical sampling procedures. First off, you ARE pulling a number out of your ass, so why put it out there in the first place if you just conjured it up with zero factual basis? FYI, the actual market share of European nameplates is about seven percent, and it's not that hard to look that kind of stuff up. (translated that would equate to a sample of about 47,000)

And even if the actual sample figure was 10,000, how is that statistically insignificant? Just because it's lower than the sample for American cars does not mean that the conclusions are compromised. Check your statistics textbook sometime (that is if you've ever read one) and look up the sample size needed for 90, 95, and 98 percent confidence intervals -- it's not that big if your sample is sufficiently random. And just in case you never bothered to actually go through the reliability charts, you might be interested in finding that any model that truly does not have a large enough data sample does not get reported in Consumer Reports' reliability data (just look for where it says "Insufficient Data"). Not knowing the distribution of responses is a nonissue if CU is using a consistently high confidence interval in the sampling. For you to say that Consumer Reports is lying and their readers are ignorant is hypocritical because your post demonstrates far more untruth and ignorance than anything that Consumer Reports has said about auto reliability.

If the CU sample is so insufficient, name me another survey that has a sample size of more than 675,000 respondents if you're so fixated on a higher sampling rate. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates the U.S. Consumer Price Index based on a survey of 7,500 households. Obviously, the statisticians at the BLS (who are among the best in the field) don't have a problem with that sample size, and the way that those numbers get parsed and cross-tabulated (by income group, by region, by household size, by race/ethnicity, etc.) is much more extensive than what CU does with the automobile reliability ratings.

Have you ever actually done survey research? I can tell you from experience with consumer surveys that the substantive differences drawn from a 1,000 household random sample versus a 10,000 household random sample are basically nonexistent; and even the difference between 100 and 1,000 responses is not that great.

And your little inneuendo about Consumer Reports subscribers and their evil American bias is pretty laughable. As I mentioned earlier, unless Consumer Reports subscribers are buying their cars from a different network of dealers or the cars are manufactured in different plants from the general population, then your objection means absolutely nothing. And a basic statistics class would be more than enough to get an introduction to error analysis and bias suppression. Oh, and BTW, the last time I checked, the cars being surveyed are the ones that are actually sold in America! Of course, that means that an American non-profit organization is the worst possible source to conduct such a study. Gosh, maybe we should call in an African or South American magazine to do an more unbiased or statistically significant survey.

The 94 Grand Am I had had 4 or 6 pages JUST to help you fix the rattles. After it was in the shop 6 times in 18 months and talking to the GM repairman I got a few inside scoops on the pracitces of the company starting with a deliberate design to aid in alternator failures and some of the worst computer chips ever built by anyone. If a Beretta's chip fail you're looking at $1800.00Cdn...without the car doesn't run. Same chip in several cars but he referred to the Beretta.

Hmmm, a survey sample of 675,000 is too small and questionable to draw conclusions from, yet your survey of ONE car IS conclusive! I'm sure your stats professor is proud of you.