In late June I asked, “Satisfaction studies, is there a point?” Well, today the results of another such study, by Claes Fornell of the University of Michigan, were released. And The Detroit News subtitled an article based on these results “Customer contentment with U.S. automakers improves sharply as Asian brands drop.” Really? Let’s take a closer look.

Results were only released at the brand level, not at the model level. And as with many results at the brand level, these don’t vary much. All but one brand falls within five points of the average, and 13 of 21 brands fall within a mere two points. This is two points out of 100.

And the sharp improvement reported by The Detroit News? A couple of domestic brands were up by three points compared to last year, and a couple others were up by two points. The others were up by a point or less. Jeep even feel by two points. As did Honda and Nissan. While Toyota feel by three points.

But the real news is that the differences, whether from brand to brand or from year to year, are almost all small. No brand changed by more than three points compared to last year. And even with sample sizes of over 100 for each brand, a point or so is bound to be random variation or simple rounding. So I don’t see any sharp changes.

To its credit, The Detroit News did note that “the gap between the highest- and lowest-performing brands has been cut from 18 points to 12 points since 1994.” Problem is, people want to read about dramatic changes, not about a lack of differences. So journalists are under pressure to take two- or three-point differences and write as if these were far larger.