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 →
Category: Site Future
Site Future
TrueDelta: Ten Years
On September 30, 2004, TrueDelta went public as a car price comparison tool. The following February we started asking people to sign up to help with a car reliability survey. Around the one-year anniversary we started conducting the survey, and soon after the two-year anniversary we had our first reliability stats–though for just a few dozen cars. The latest results,… More →
Site improvements
Some day we’ll remember the months around last December’s site redesign fondly. Or maybe the memories will just fade. They were tough, real tough. Entirely redesigning the site resurfaced dozens of bugs that had been fixed over the years, and created many new ones. Thanks to member feedback (and a lot of hard work by Gayla) these are now largely… More →
60,000th car enrolled
Early this morning the 60,000th car was enrolled in the Car Reliability Survey. It had been only 13 days since the 59,000th was enrolled, a new record. We currently have just over 49,300 members, so some time in March we’ll grow past the 50,000 mark. With the number of participants growing so quickly, the May results will be the most… More →
When does a car start to feel old?
I recently came across an interesting question on a forum for the Mazda6: at which point did your car stop feeling new? More pointedly: when does a car start feeling old, and what change makes it feel that way? Repairs are one thing. But what many people really want to avoid is the feeling that they’re driving a piece of… More →
1,000th Honda Accord
It took TrueDelta nearly six months to attract the first 1,000 members. After all, people were signing up for a survey that hadn’t even started happening. Well, as of yesterday we have 1,000 of a single model, the Honda Accord. No real surprise that the Accord reached this mark first. Hondas have always been the most-researched cars on the site.… More →
TrueDelta’s continuing domestic car shortage
We had a member quit in a huff last month because of TrueDelta’s “obvious bias” against domestic cars. He hasn’t been the first–there have been a handful of others–and he won’t be the last. His evidence: most of our Vehicle Reliability Survey results are for cars made by foreign-based manufacturers. And, for some reason, when rabid fans of domestic cars see… More →
2008 Update – results in February?
For the past month or so, one of my top priorities has been getting enough owners of 2008 models enrolled to have results on a few in February. How are we doing? Below you’ll find the latest counts (updated on 12-15): Buick Enclave: 79 Other Lambdas: 31 Nissan Rogue: 36 Honda Accord: 35 Infiniti G-Series: 34 Saturn VUE: 34 Nissan… More →
Half of the panel now active
I don’t want anyone to spend time filling out the surveys unless there’s a good chance TrueDelta will be able to use the data they provide. So we start collecting data only when 25 of a model are signed up. As a result, the percentage of the panel that was active was initially small. Actually, it was zero for nearly… More →
How many 2008 models will be in the February results?
One of the major advantages of TrueDelta’s research process is that, if enough owners participate, we can have initial results for new models very quickly. The best proof of this so far: the 2008 Buick Enclave (and the related GMC Acadia and Saturn Outlook). Thanks to the help of EnclaveForum.net, with assists from AcadiaForum.net, Saturnfans.com, and SaturnOutlookForum.net, we’ve already received over… More →