The latest major change: the bottom half of the homepage now includes links to the brand pages, from which you can get to a page where all the site’s informaton for a specific model is either displayed or directly linked to. This should make it easier for people seeking information on a single model. As part of this change, “reviews”… More →
Month: September 2008
1,000th Honda Accord
It took TrueDelta nearly six months to attract the first 1,000 members. After all, people were signing up for a survey that hadn’t even started happening. Well, as of yesterday we have 1,000 of a single model, the Honda Accord. No real surprise that the Accord reached this mark first. Hondas have always been the most-researched cars on the site.… More →
Volvo cuts margins on options to near zero
I’ve written before about “hidden price increases,” where the sticker price stays the same but the invoice price goes up. Though such increases, dealers’ margins on car have gotten smaller and smaller over the past 20 years. And when the dealer pays more, you tend to pay more, even if the sticker price remains the same. The latest development: after cutting the… More →
Hyundai improves its cars’ fuel economy
Even as it has made advances in other areas, Hyundai has lagged its more experienced competitors in fuel economy. Even the tiny Accent, with a 1.6-liter engine and automatic transmission, only managed 24 miles-per-gallon in the city and 33 on the highway in the EPA’s tests last year. A Toyota Yaris: 29 in the city, and 35 on the highway.… More →
Free at last! TrueDelta gets a new host.
TrueDelta started out on your regular basic $4/month shared hosting plan. Then, in the spring of 2006, we moved to a VPS (Virtual Private Server) plan at Apollo Hosting. Apollo was selected based on a strong recommendation, and for the first year or so they were excellent. Support was 24/7, via toll-free phone or live chat. And little support was… More →
Vehicle list integration
A downside of adding pieces one by one to the TrueDelta site is that, as these accumulate, the whole can become disorganized. More than a few people have found the resulting site organization confusing and even frustrating. I’ve been working on the site organization. Among the changes: clicking on “Reliability” on the homepage now goes to the latest survey results rather than to… More →
How should the Chevrolet Volt’s energy use be calculated?
GM plans to launch the Chevrolet Volt in 2010. The Volt runs on battery power for the first 40 miles or so, and after that a small gas engine will cycle on as needed to recharge the batteries. Plug-in versions of parallel hybrids, where the engine can directly power the wheel, are also coming. Earlier today I learned of an interesting discussion… More →
Warranty data
No one has better vehicle reliability data on fairly new vehicles than the manufacturers, since they keep detailed records of warranty claims. Problem is, they’re not about to publicly release this data. But publicly traded American corporations do have to report how much they pay out in warranty claims each year at the corporate level. I recently learned that these… More →
August Vehicle Reliability Survey results: some comments
Last month we posted the lastest results for TrueDelta’s Vehicle Reliability Survey. This set of results included a couple of early 2009 models, the Nissan Murano and Jaguar XF, well head of any other public source of vehicle reliability information. The Murano’s launch has been cleaner than most recent Nissan new product launches. Owners of the all-new SUV reported a… More →