Archive for March, 2011

In recent years domestic car manufacturers have often increased prices a number of times over the course of the model year. Though the price increases were usually small, performed three or more times during the year they could add up.

This year, though, GM, Ford and Chrysler haven’t increased prices nearly as often, or as much. Perhaps they really are trying to sell cars with lower incentives. In the past, when they increased priced they often had to subsequently increase the rebate as well, so there was no net gain anyway.

Instead, foreign car manufacturers have been more likely to raise prices. Especially if they’re Japanese they might be reacting to the strengthening of the yen.

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I had hoped to launch a redesigned site this month. The design itself is complete, but we’ve decided to more thoroughly re-engineer the site in the process of applying this new design to all of the pages. And we can’t risk downtime next month, which follows the end of the quarter so every survey response will be critical. Consequently, the redesign will launch in May.

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In recent years Ford has earned a reputation for developing the most reliability domestic brand cars. But glitches in some of their newest products could point to trouble ahead.

With the latest update we have a solid result for the new 2011 Ford Fiesta, and at 88 repair trips per 100 cars per year it’s not good. The Fiesta has suffered from common problems with the dual clutch transmission and the fuel gauge. There’s a simple fix for the most common transmission problem, essentially cleaning an electrical ground and reprogramming the computer. But a few of these transmissions have failed entirely.

The 2010 Ford Taurus has also been afflicted by a few common, if generally minor, problems. The most common: chrome trim peeling off the tail lights.

If this turns out to be the full extent of the problems with these cars, then there’s no reason for concern. Most are quite minor. But these problems are common enough that they should have been discovered and resolved before any cars left the factory. Did Ford not test these new models thoroughly enough? If so, then additional common problems, possibly not so minor, are likely down the road.

Car Reliability Survey results