No repairs? Still just as important to participate.

Every once in a while someone will resign from the panel and, when I ask why, they’ll respond that their car hasn’t been having any problems, so their participation hasn’t been of any use. No doubt many people think that cars with problems provide more valuable information than those without any problems. But this just isn’t true. The primary goal… More →

First 2,000 responses in just under 12 hours

The Internet is an amazing instrument for survey research. As long as vehicle reliability research was conducted by snail mail, firms conducted surveys only one a year and took months to release the results. I developed TrueDelta’s reliability research process to take advantage of the much quicker turnaround times enabled by online surveys. And yet I didn’t imagine how rapidly… More →

GM’s decision to kill its future V8: nearsighted or farsighted?

The Detroit News reported this morning that GM has decided to kill a $300 million program for a new DOHC V8 to replace the circa-1992 Northstar engine. Rising oil prices and the new CAFE standards were given as reasons. But this will leave GM without a competitive DOHC V8. So are they just successfully reading where things are heading, or over-reacting… More →

Cleaning and lubing – should they count as repairs?

I’ve started to review the survey responses for the quarter, in preparation for releasing preliminary results to members in a few weeks. As always, this process leads to tweaks, as I refine the rules of what does and does not count as a repair for the purposes of this analysis. A tweak I’m currently considering: excluding cleaning and lubrication as maintenance… More →