A funny thing happened when I configured two recent press cars using TrueDelta’s pricing tool: it turned out that both press fleet cars were configured in a way that they cost more for less content. With Jaguar’s midsize sedan, if you add two items standard on the 380-horsepower XF S to the 340-horsepower XF R Sport, 20-inch wheels and adaptive… More →
Author: Michael
Study: Gen Z very practical about cars
Autotrader / KBB surveyed Gen Z about cars and, as reported today to the Automotive Press Association, found dramatic differences between the responses of this group (12 to 17 years old) and those of 18-to-34-year-old “Milllennials.” While cars are often an image-driven purchase for Millennialls, who rate Audi as their favorite brand, they’re largely seen as transportation appliances by the… More →
Am I being overly picky?
Chevrolet has upgraded the interior of its midsize Malibu sedan as part of a complete redesign for 2016. Some aspects of the interior I like a lot. An increasing number of cars, including the Kia Optima I examined last week, have stitching embedded in molded panels. If you think about it at all, this makes no sense, especially not if… More →
A feature I’d love to have on a car
In too many cars the view forward is more constrained than I’d like. I’m not a fan of deep instrument panels, tall instrument panels, or low windshield headers. An increasing number of cars have at least two of these, and some have all three. But what if the windshield could extend far back into the roof, as seen on this… More →
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly at the 2016 Detroit Auto Show
Acura Acura revealed the Precision concept. Though there’s virtually no chance that they’ll actually produce a car like it, hopefully Acura’s future production sedans borrow heavily from its styling and aggressively sporty character. Currently their styling is stodgy and boring and they don’t feel nearly as sporty as some past Acuras. cars more like this concept would get Acura back… More →
Free memberships–in need of a tweak?
During the first week of the survey this month members responded for 14,711 cars. This broke the previous record–by three cars. As encouraging as this is, I feel far more members should be participating, and have been giving a lot of thought to how to make this happen. People sometimes tell me they respond as a favor to me, and… More →
Post-purchase unpleasant surprises: seats
People often ask why TrueDelta doesn’t survey owner satisfaction. Well, owner satisfaction is a very tricky thing to measure, especially if you do not have a random sample (which we don’t), because of the role played by expectations. If a car is very good, but buyers expected it to be even better, it won’t score well. If a car has… More →
The most and least reliable cars in our survey
My previous post included the models with the lowest reported repair frequencies for each model year. As noted in that past, this wasn’t entirely fair. Other models are close, and given sampling error and the meaninglessness of small differences are essentially just as reliable. So here’s a list of all models (among those we received at least 25 responses for)… More →
How often do cars require repairs as they age?
Before TrueDelta, nearly all publicly available car reliability information was relative to the average. While “better than average” certainly seemed preferable to “worse than average,” one key piece of information wasn’t provided: how high (or low) was the average? Did the average car require one repair per year? Two? More? No one without insider status knew. To fix this, I… More →
What…is your favorite color?
On Facebook you can find a fan group for just about any car color. I initially joined the Brown Car Appreciation Society thinking it was meant in jest. But this group’s love for brown is quite genuine. Truth be told, my personal allegiance is most with the Blue Car Appreciation Society. Yet I haven’t owned a blue car in over… More →