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 →
Category: Choosing a Car
Choosing a Car
A Tale of Two Tucsons
Which level of equipment do you tend to be most interested in. Nothing but the essentials? Mid-level, with perhaps leather, nav, and/or sunroof? Or all boxes checked? I ask because the cars I test can be any of these. The Hyundai Tucson I tested a few weeks ago was the base-level SE. The Mazda CX-3 I have this week is… More →
Changes in the most popular price comparisons
It’s been six months since I last updated the list of the most popular price comparisons. Why so long? Partly because I’ve been buried in other work for the site. But also because it rarely changes much from one month to the next. Go six months, though, and you’ll see a few changes. The top five comparisons are now all… More →
A “seismic shift” in the car market
When members of TrueDelta’s panel sell an enrolled car and buy a new one, they email me so I can make the change. In recent months, I’ve noted many cases where a large, powerful vehicle was traded for a smaller, more efficient one. And very few cases of the opposite. It seems that size and power are on the way out,… More →
SRT to Smart
The theory behind market segmentation assumes that people have a certain set of needs and thus that when looking to buy something like a car can be expected to buy a specific type of product. Reality isn’t nearly so clean. Although I continue to find market segmentation quite interesting (how might car buyers be grouped?), and believe there’s a role for… More →
My father buys his first GM car in 25 years
Back when I first got into cars, I talked my father into buying a 1983 Pontiac 6000 STE instead of a Saab 900 Turbo. The Saab was neat, and he really wanted it. But Detroit had gotten to me with all its flag waving, and the magazines were talking up the Pontiac as a legitimate alternative to the Audi 5000,… More →
Best cars for tall, long-legged, and large people?
From time to time I receive an email asking which cars are most comfortable for someone who is tall, long-legged, large, or all of the above. Problem is, I’m none of the above–at 5-9 and 175 pounds I’m probably very close to the size person cars are designed around. So this isn’t something I can evaluate well during my test… More →
Updated the “most popular” list — and a Buick is in the top 20
I’d update the list of the 40 most common price comparisons more often, but it simply doesn’t change that much. I just updated it for the first time in 75 days, and it only goes back 90. Despite the minimal amount of overlap between the two periods, and the fact that the new totals include considerable traffic over the last… More →
The hardest thing to evaluate during a test drive: long-distance seat comfort
Over at MazdaForums someone recently posted that they might have to sell the $40,000 CX-9 they just purchased because the seat became very uncomfortable for them after a few hours. They ended up getting an upholstery shop to trim back some excess material in the seams and add some padding, which helped some. But the fact remains that a seat… More →
Diamonds in the rough – used car bargains
The Mazda I currently own is only the second new car I’ve ever owned, and the first since 1985. Used cars are generally just much better values. And among used cars, there are some very good ones that most people just don’t consider, so their prices are almost shockingly low for what you get. Each month, Brendan Moore posts a… More →