Archive for March, 2010

I originally created the Car Repair History Survey to serve as a supplement to the main survey, the Car Reliability Survey, for people who wanted to report on cars not yet in the main survey or to report on repairs that occurred before they joined.

The original Car Repair History Survey was minimalist–to a fault. There was no easy, intuitive way to edit or delete entries. Only one entry could be made for a month. And it wasn’t possible to enter many different details.

Even so, many members have been using the Car Repair History Survey to maintain a record of their car repairs. For this purpose, it could do a much better job. So I have totally rewritten the code to improve usability and include many additional functions.

Highlights of the revised survey:

1. Edit and delete separate entries, or entire repair trips. (This will not affect your Car Reliability Survey responses, which are in separate tables.)

2. Configurable level of detail, even by car — provide your settings before getting started using the button at the top of the form. Settings can be changed at any time, in any direction. They do not affect the data already input, only what is displayed and which items are on the form.

3. Optionally report on routine maintenance, preventative maintenance, wear items, and even cleaning expenses and mods. While only repairs and (perhaps) preventative maintenance are displayed in the public repair histories, you can now track nearly every car-related expense in your personal car cost report.

4. Option to itemize costs by repair and even by the amounts for parts and labor. The system will calculate the totals if you opt for this level of detail. You can also provide the amount paid by warranty, if you’d like. In all cases, leaving a field empty will not cause a problem–it’s entirely a matter of what information you want to record.

5. Easy way to import Car Reliability Survey entries–if you’re part of that survey, first submit any new repairs through it. You’ll be able to add additional detail when importing them.

6. Specify the system repaired, so we can better organize the information in the public repair histories.

This is just the first phase. In coming months I’ll:

1. Change the public repair histories to draw from the new tables. In the meantime, new entries won’t appear in the public histories.

2. Clean up the design. The report’s format already changes based on your settings, but more could be done to optimize the low-detail format to make it more concise, like the old report.

3. Provide summary statistics of costs by time period and by miles.

4. Perform a similar upgrade on the Gas Mileage Survey.

5. Integrate the Car Repair History and Gas Mileage Surveys to provide a complete online car maintenance and cost record.

Further out, I hope to make it possible to import data from spreadsheets and input information through mobile devices.

Any suggestions? Post a comment.

Car Repair History Survey

We headed into yesterday with 61,876 cars signed up for the Car Reliability Survey. The previous day, 147 cars were enrolled, among the best days ever. So 62,000 was within reach. And if we got there, it would only be ten days since the 61,000th car was enrolled.

The previous record for growing by 1,000 cars: 13 days. Ten days would smash it.

I made an extra push to get more cars signed up, but it wasn’t quite enough. We ended yesterday with 61,989 cars signed up, a net gain of “only” 113.

Still only 11 days for the latest 1,000, and a new record. But ten is a nice round number, and it was so close!

Since TrueDelta promptly updates its Car Reliability Survey results four times a year, we can report on new models ahead of anyone else. Last year, we announced that the 2009 Jaguar XF was faring poorly. This provoked a blistering backlash from owners at a particular Jaguar forum. In the end, threads on reliability were deleted and future ones all but banned in the interest of preserving what remained of the UK auto industry.

The outraged owners argued that TrueDelta’s results could not be correct, since Jaguar had just been declared the most dependable make by J.D. Power. I pointed out that the VDS covers the third year of ownership, 2006 in that case, and that Jaguar had discontinued, redesigned, or replaced every model in its line save the XJ in the interim. So the results did not apply to the XF, or the current XK for that matter.

Well, J.D. Power has now released the 2010 Vehicle Dependability Survey (VDS), which covers 2007s in their third year of ownership, and, as predicted, the redesigned XK has, all by its lonesome, sunk Jaguar’s ranking from 1st to 23rd. And it’ll only get uglier once the XF is reflected in these stats in another two years.

#1 this year: Porsche. Many people will wonder how Porsche fared so well. One likely factor: Porsches are often weekend cars that aren’t driven much. J.D. Power might consider doing what TrueDelta does, and post average odometer readings. A larger factor: THERE WAS NO 2007 CAYENNE—Porsche skipped straight from 2006 to 2008. The Cayenne is likely more troublesome than the sports cars, and is certainly driven more. So don’t expect a top VDS score for Porsche next year, when the Cayenne is again part of the mix.

“Long term” for J.D. Power continues to mean “the third year of ownership.” It used to mean the fifth year, but manufacturers have little use for fifth-year data, and this survey primarily exists to serve manufacturers willing to pay large sums for detailed results.

Many car buyers, though, are much more interested in how cars fare after the 3/36 warranty ends. J.D. Power has no information for them, hoping that car buyers will accept third-year problem frequencies as a sufficient indicator of how a car will perform over the long haul. Unfortunately, in many cases it is not. TrueDelta’s data suggest that all too often cars take a turn for the worse either soon after the warranty ends or after 100,000 miles.

As usual, the public gets brand-level scores rather than model-level scores from J.D. Power. Brand-level scores are of limited use for a car buyer, and can actually misinform as much as they inform. After all, people don’t buy the entire line. They buy a particular model. And the scores of models can vary widely within a brand.

Much is made of which brands did better this year (Porsche, Lincoln), and which did worse (Jaguar). Well, as noted above, the brand averages can be heavily influenced by the introduction of a single new design or the absence of a single old design.

For these and other reasons a focus on model-level scores would be much more valid and useful.

Also worth noting: as in the past most makes are tightly bunched around the average, 155 problems per 100 cars this year. Consumer Reports considers any score within 20 percent of the average in its own survey to be “about average.” Applying this metric to J.D. Power’s results, 21 of the 36 brands are “about average.”

J.D. Power notes that for Cadillac, Ford, Hyundai, Lincoln, and Mercury perceptions of reliability lag reality. No surprise, since (as I’ve found all too often) people often judge (and more often than not reject) data based on how these data fit their perceptions rather than judging their perceptions based on how they fit the data.

J.D. Power’s explicit solution: convince consumers of gains in reliability. The implicit solution: pay to include VDS results in your ads. But are perceptions based on the VDS any more likely to be correct? Or, as seen in the Porsche and Jaguar cases, are they just as often part of the problem?

When looking over the results of our Car Reliability Survey, I check for consistency across model years. As the sample sizes grow, they’re consistent more often than not. When one result is out of line with the others, the question is then whether we’re looking at an inaccurate result, or whether that particular model year might actually require more repairs. The latter is most often the case when a design was in its first model year.

For example, number of repair trips per 100 cars per year for the Honda Accord:

2009: 34

2008: 26

2007: 36

2006: 18

2005: 28

2004: 34

2003: 82

With the possible exception of the 2006, the results from 2004 through 2009 fall within a tight range. This is generally what we see with sample sizes of 50+, as we have for all of these.

But what happened with the 2003? Unlike the others, it’s only about average. Well, this was the first model year of the 2003-2007 Accord, and it has consistently had a higher reported problem rate in our survey.

The 2008 was also a first model year car, but has done better. Honda apparently got most of the bugs out before launching this car.

Another example, the Audi A4:

2010: 30

2009: 64

2008: 48

2007: 48

2005.5-
2006: 78

2005: 154

2004: 135

2003: 119

2002: 159

The 2009 was the first model year of the latest A4. The 2010 is faring better, as is often the case with the second model year.

But the most notable difference is between the 2002-2005 and the 2005.5-2008. The reported repair rates for the more recent group are far lower than those for the older group. Well, the A4 was revised halfway through the 2005 model year, hence the 2005.5 designation, and the revised car has required far fewer repairs. Even with its “first model year” disadvantage, the 2005.5-2006 has been doing much better than the 2005 car it replaced.

Our latest set of results:

Car Reliability Survey results

Antoine of MazdaForums asked me which five models have been most researched recently. Turns out I hadn’t updated the Most Popular Car Price Comparisons list in a while. Since last July, in fact.

Since it has been eight months, there must be quite a few changes, right? Well, not exactly. Hondas continue to dominate, followed by–despite the current crisis–Toyotas. Both eight months ago and now the top five comparisons are all between a Honda and a Toyota. Only the order has changed a little.

Through the rest of the list, Honda’s dominance has slipped only a bit. Last July, 23 of the top 40 comparisons–including 12 of the top 15–included at least one Honda product. This time around, “only” 21 of the top 40 and 11 of the top 15.

Toyota is currently immersed in an unintended acceleration crisis. So surely fewer people are considering its cars? Last July, 17 of the top 40 comparisons included a Toyota. This time around, only 13. So there has been a decline, but not a precipitous one. No one save Honda comes close.

When I first started this list, there wasn’t a domestic car on it. This time there are seven: the Ford Fusion, Mustang, Escape, and Fiesta and the Chevrolet Malibu, Camaro, and Equinox. On the other hand, in only two comparisons (Fiesta-Fit and Fusion-Camry) is a domestic compared to a foreign brand.

So what brands are being researched more? Surprisingly, not Hyundai–it’s in only one comparison this time around. Following Honda and Toyota we now have:

BMW: 6

VW / Audi: 6

Ford: 5

Subaru: 5

Mazda: 4

All others: 3 or fewer

This site attracts people who like to heavily research their car purchases. And, for whatever reason, such people tend to focus their research on Hondas and Toyotas.

Edmunds AutoObserver Michelle Krebs, commenting on the termination and replacement of Cadillac’s leadership, concluded, “If GM is going to change and is going to succeed, it must change people.” Paraphrasing Eistein, she added that “Doing the same thing over and over again with the same people in the same positions and expecting a different result is…insane.”

Michelle Krebs is far from the first to suggest that, to survive, a struggling company must replace the executives that oversaw its decline. And she won’t be the last. But this is a superficial solution that, if it is the entire solution, will fail.

A key reason for the popularity of this solution is that it’s easy to observe and easy to comprehend. But it’s based on a very shaky assumption: if an executive didn’t achieve the desired result, then that executive either lacked ability or lacked the proper intent. The latter is addressed through demands for “accountability,” which Krebs also suggests.

But what if these are good, talented people placed in an unwinnable situation? What if the structure and culture of the organization prevent them from doing what they know should be done, and would otherwise do?

This has very much been the case within General Motors. I essentially lived within the GM organization for over a year back in the late 1990s, observing it as an anthropologist would. I encountered, over and over, people who knew the right thing to do, and who wanted to do the right thing, but who were unable to do it because GM’s structure and modes of operation placed endless barriers in their way. As a result, the predominating mood within the organization was one of frustration.

Putting different people in the same organization and expecting a different result is insane.

Actually, the outcome could well be different–but worse. Developiing and building cars in an intensely collaborative exercise. For people to do well within it they must both be experts at what they do and know those they work with very well. Place an expert among strangers, and they will likely discredit and ignore his or her suggestions. You cannot really know who knows what they’re talking about by listening to them for the first time. Knowledge of the extent of others’ knowledge, especially if they’re in a different field than you are, can often only be gained through repeatedly working together.

Bring in new people, and they will know neither their new jobs nor the expertise of those they must work with. This is proven recipe for either indecision or, when the pressure for results is intense, bad decisions. GM and many other companies have gone through this cycle over and over. While GM hasn’t often fired executives outright, as they did in this case, they’ve switched people around many times before, but rarely with the intended results.

Now, perhaps GM’s new leaders aren’t merely changing people. Perhaps they’re also making fundamental changes to the way the organization is structured and the way it operates. Maybe these changes simply aren’t being reported in the press because they are much more difficult to comprehend and communicate than personnel changes. Maybe they’re even the right structural and cultural changes. If so, then changing people might be necessary to keep the new organization from reverting to the old one. As one piece within a much larger solution, personnel changes might make sense.

But, if they’re the entire solution, personnel changes are bound to fail. To repeat: putting different people in the same organization and expecting a different result is insane.

The suggestions I offered to GM nearly a decade ago:

Executive summary of report to GM

An article in this week’s Advertising Age and Automotive News (they’re sister publications) investigates why the family in the new hit sitcom ‘Modern Family’ “still drives Toyota product.” The author found it “jarring” that the family “chatted happily while traveling in, of all things, a Toyota.” The answer: Toyota paid for product placement, the contract runs through the end of the season, and many of the episodes have already been shot.

The implication: if the show were realistic, the family should be scared to death to be in a Toyota, and only placement dollars are keeping the show from replacing the Toyotas in question with truly safe cars. Overlooked: that even now the problem hasn’t been replicated or definitively identified, and at any rate affects a very small pecentage of cars. Anyone with a sense of probability would be no more concerned about driving a Toyota than any other car.

The article states that, in the past, when a company was hit by a crisis, such as a plane crash, all of that company’s ads were usually pulled as soon as possible. The author doesn’t seem to realize that this was done for the sake of the advertiser, in case it wanted to alter the message sent or wait until the crisis was over to resume advertising. It wasn’t done to distance the network from the advertiser, as the author assumes when asking why the network has risked “negative rub-off” by linking its hit show “to the brouhaha.”

It makes more sense to ask, as the article also does, why Toyota hasn’t requested that its cars be removed from the show. The answer in this case is obvious: the last thing Toyota would want to do is imply that its cars are too unsafe to drive by pulling them from the show.

Ultimately there’s no conflict, and so no real point to the article. The network wants the Toyotas in the show because they get product placement money and they don’t want to reshoot any scenes. Toyota wants to keep its cars in the show because it’s effective advertising and to do otherwise would increase generally unfounded suspicions about their safety. And there’s no valid reason the cars shouldn’t still be in the show, except that the scattered explicit product references can be mildly irritating.

What I personally found “jarring:” in the most recent episode the family let its oldest daughter, who just got her license on her third attempt and who is clearly not a safe driver, go off by herself in their brand-new Sienna minivan. Having drivers like this girl on the road without any supervision–now that’s unsafe.

In recent years Opel, the German subsidiary of General Motors, has offered some very desireable cars. But the company has rarely offered these cars in the U.S. and when it has they have not sold well. A decade ago Americans failed to buy the Cadillac Catera, and more recently they left the Saturn ASTRA sitting on lots.

Opel’s latest hit, the midsize Insignia, was supposed to come to the U.S. as a second-generation Saturn AURA. But then Saturn was scrapped, and so we, like China, will receive the Insignia as a new Buick Regal.

For the first model year, until a production line is set up in North America, the new Regal will be produced in Germany. Because the dollar remains weak compared to the euro, GM’s production costs will be high, and there is a clear need to price the car as high as possible. At the same time, it must be priced competitively, and not too close to the related but larger and more luxurious Buick LaCrosse.

Well, pricing has been announced, so we have our answer. One tactic: no “CX” base trim will be offered in the Regal’s first year. Instead, initially we’ll only receive the mid-level CXL.

The new Buick Regal will only be offered with four-cylinder engines, and at first only with a 182-horsepower 2.4-liter. The same engine was just added to the larger Buick LaCrosse’s powertrain options, though only in its CX trim. Comparing the Regal CXL to the LaCrosse CX (with alloy wheels and Comfort and Convenience Package to make features comparable), the Regal lists for $1,250 less. Adjusting for remaining feature differences widens the gap to about $1,800.

Similarly load up both Buicks in CXL trim (in which case the LaCrosse has a 255-horsepower 3.0-liter V6) and the LaCrosse lists for $3,355 more. Adjusting for feature differences–but not the engine difference–cuts the Regal’s advantage to about $2,000. If the 3.0-liter V6 was a more impressive performer in the LaCrosse, this would be too close for comfort.

Since it’s not far below the LaCrosse, and it has a semi-premium brand, the Regal must be much more expensive than its Chevrolet cousin, the Malibu, right? Especially since the Malibu is based on the first-generation Epsilon platform, and won’t switch to the Epsilon II platform that underpins the new Regal until the 2012 model year.

Well, no. The Regal CXL lists for $430 LESS than the Malibu LTZ (after adding a compact spare to the Chevrolet, since one is standard on the Buick). Adjust for feature differences, and the difference ends up $70 in the Malibu’s favor. So, before incentives, the two cars are very closely priced. In this case, it’s the Regal, no contest. The only compelling reason to get the Malibu instead: if you want a V6.

Buick sees the Acura TSX as a close competitor, since it is also a relatively compact “near luxury” sedan and until recently was only available with a four-cylinder engine. Add a sunroof to the Regal, since one is standard on the TSX, and the Buick lists for $2,125 less. Adjust for remaining feature differences, and the gap shrinks to about $1,400. Compare invoice prices instead of MSRP, and the difference is less than $300. Very close.

Buick isn’t the only one gunning for the TSX’s buyers. Suzuki also pits its new Kizashi sedan against the Acura. The Kizashi, like the TSX, is more compact and more nicely furnished than the typical midsize car. Like the new Buick Regal, is also only available with a four-cylinder engine. A Kizashi SLS (the top trim level) with CVT, floormats, and metallic paint lists for $1,506 less than a Regal CXL with sunroof. Adjust for the Suzuki’s extra features (it is very well endowed for a car in this price range) and its price advantage widens to about $2,300. But the Kizashi is a half-size smaller, and few car buyers even know it exists.

The 2011 Buick Regal will not only be German-engineered. It will also be German-made. So some people might cross-shop the Volkswagen Passat. A Passat with optional 18-inch alloys (standard on the Regal) lists for $550 more than a Regal with the optional sunroof (standard on the VW). Pretty close. The Regal still includes about $1,100 in additional equipment, so its price advantage is about $1,700. Pretty good–but recall that the VW has a more powerful turbocharged, 200-horsepower turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cyliner engine. A 2.0-liter turbo four good for 220 horsepower will later be offered in the Regal, but its additional cost will easily wipe out this advantage. So adjust for the engine difference as well and these two cars also become very close in price.

Overall, the 2011 Buick Regal isn’t a steal. Unless GM ends up offering it with large rebates, which doesn’t seem likely, it is priced about the same as its closest competitors once feature differences are adjusted for. So the Regal isn’t likely to be bought instead of a Malibu, TSX, or Passat on the basis of price alone. Instead, it’s going to be a matter of which car is most appealing. Which, if Buick is going to survive as a semi-premium brand, is how it should be.

To run your own price comparisons:

Car price comparisons

It was long overdue, and I’ve now added bodystyle and powertrain specs for 2000 and 2001 models to the database. What this means–it’s now possible to participate with 2000 and 2001 model year cars in all surveys, including the “Why (Not) This Car?” survey, Gas Mileage Survey, and Car Repair History Survey.

It took me about 33 hours to enter this data, which is why it didn’t happen sooner. I plan to also add the 2000 model year, but that will probably be as far back as we’ll go for all surveys.

The main survey, the Car Reliability Survey, will continue to cover from the 1995 model year on.

With the 2010 Chevrolet Equinox and GMC Terrain General Motors finally figured out what car buyers are looking for in a compact crossover. Dealers have had trouble keeping them on lots. But did GM work out all of the bugs prior to launching the vehicle?

With prompt quarterly updates, TrueDelta’s Car Reliability Survey can answer this question well ahead of other sources. The latest update, which includes owner experiences through the end of 2009, reports that 2010 Equinox and Terrain owners have been experiencing 94 repair trips per 100 cars per year. This is worse than average. This said, the reported problems have generally been minor and fixed quickly on the first attempt.

Other recent GM crossover launches, including the 2007 GMC Acadia and Saturn Outlook and the 2008 Saturn VUE, had similar stats at this point. Both later improved to average, and the same will likely happen with the new Equinox and Terrain.

While most recent GM launches have been worse than average initially, not all have been. The new Chevrolet Camaro has fared better: with 41 repair trips per 100 cars it’s about average, and the most common repair has involved loose bolts for the rear spoiler.

With prompt quarterly updates, we’ll track all of these cars closely as they get more miles on them. The stats for the Equinox and Terrain could improve as soon as the next update, in May.

Car Reliability Survey results