Archive for June, 2007

J.D. Power got its start performing reliability research, which is also what TrueDelta has been focusing on.

But some critics mused, “Enough about things gone wrong. What about things gone right? Perhaps some cars are so pleasurable to own and drive that a few extra problems are of little consequence.” And so research firms started conducting a second type of study, on owners’ satisfaction with the design and operation of their vehicles. Strategic Vision might have been first with its Total Quality Index, but if so J.D. Power soon countered with its similarly focused APEAL study. The results of both annual satisfaction studies were released this month.

TrueDelta conducts no such owner satisfaction study, for a few reasons.

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Last year I wrote about what I like to call “The Pricing Game.” In this game, manufacturers raise sticker prices very little–and might even cut them–while raising the invoice prices paid by dealers. As a result, the prices paid by consumers go up even though the sticker prices changed very little, or not at all. It’s a hidden price increase.

Hyundai recently made a play in this game, and perhaps the largest play yet. Sticker prices went up by at most $100. Many did not change. But invoice prices went up by $400 or more in many cases.

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As I noted in an earlier blog entry, nearly every car is “loaded” these days. A quarter-century ago only a minority of cars were equipped with things like power windows, power locks, and cruise control, and even air conditioning was rarely standard. These days all of these features, and then some, are standard on nearly every car.

One big reason why: price. Consider a few different options.

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Over at MazdaForums someone recently posted that they might have to sell the $40,000 CX-9 they just purchased because the seat became very uncomfortable for them after a few hours. They ended up getting an upholstery shop to trim back some excess material in the seams and add some padding, which helped some. But the fact remains that a seat that feels comfortable during a brief test drive can feel very uncomfortable after a few hours of driving time?

Why does this happen? How can you keep this from happening to you?

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Ever since the current site design went up a year ago there has been a space reserved for photos at the top of each Model Information page. Getting these photos has long been on my to-do list, but other things always seemed more critical. Well, in late May I finally got down to the task of finding the most appropriate photos on the manufacturers’ media sites and modifying them to suit. And now, over two weeks later, the job is finally done.

And, now that it’s done, I’d like to replace all of these photos–with those of your cars. The stock photos vary greatly in quality, and even if they did not this site is all about content contributed by members for members. 

If you have a suitable photo or can take one, please email it to me. You do not have to provide both an exterior or an interior photo. One or the other will still be very helpful. But in either case I have very specific criteria–so be sure to read through them below.

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Chevrolet has instructed its dealers to buy a Camry and put it in showrooms next to the redesigned 2008 Malibu this fall. Saturn dealers will soon be offering three-way test drives pitting its Aura sedan against the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry. In both cases, the thinking is that if only car buyers recognized how well the GM sedans compare, they’d return to the fold.

Unfortunately for GM, this simply isn’t the case.  To win over a car buyer, it’s not enough that your product be excellent. The car buyer must also be dissatisfied with the existing product and/or the company that made it. As Robert Farago notes in a similarly themed The Truth About Cars editorial today, Honda and Toyota only succeeded because the Detroit-based manufacturers falied to field competitive products and upset so many millions of car buyers back in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.

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Lately I’m reading many forum threads like this one where the poster wants to know why car prices are so much higher in Canada or Europe than in the United States.

The simple answer: taxes and exchange rates. The former can be far higher in other countries. I’m going to focus on the latter here. The U.S. dollar has been falling against other currencies. In the late 1990s, the Canadian dollar was worth less than 70 U.S. cents. Not it’s worth more than 90 U.S. cents, and recently hit a 30-year high. The situation is similar with the Euro. As a result, when car prices in Canada and Europe are translated into U.S. dollars, they’re much higher than they used to be.

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J.D. Power has released the results of the 2007 version of their Initial Quality Study (IQS). This study surveys car owners about problems esperienced during the first 90 days of ownership. As in the past, it is important to look beyond who won to what is being measured and the size of the differences. With these things understood, J.D.’s latest results are interesting.

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Supposedly the vehicle market has been fragmenting. This is why Ford chose to replace the Taurus with two different models, the Fusion and the Five Hundred (soon to be renamed Taurus). Sedan sales have been steadily declining as people switch to an increasingly broad variety other, more multi-functional vehicle types. And there are more brands to choose from than in decades past. Put it all together, and the days when anyone could sell more than a half-million of a single car model in the U.S. would seem over. Even a quarter-million, roughly the output of a single assembly plant, has been hard to achieve.

So I was shocked to learn that Toyota sold over 50,000 Camrys in May.

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With frequent surveys and fast analysis, TrueDelta’s research process has been designed to provide reliability information soon after a new model launches. And so the May results include the first reliability statistics you’ll find anywhere on the Nissan Versa and Saturn Aura.

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