The current special survey on dealership sales experience surveys asks panel members about their gender and age for the first time. And the results have been surprising.

Many people come to the panel from Epinions, which has a heavily female membership. And women tend to be more concerned about reliability than men are. I also get many emails from women on the panel. So I’ve always assumed women were at least a quarter of the panel.

Turns out that the percentage is not even close: only about six percent.

Clearly I need to be doing a much better job getting the word out to women. Anyone with insights on how to go about this?

The panel is far more balanced in terms of age. Responses are still coming in, but the current percentages look like this:

• Teens: 1
• 20s: 16
• 30s: 26
• 40s: 20
• 50s: 21
• 60s: 11
• 70+: 2

The under 30 crowd is less prominent than I expected, and teenagers are nearly non-existent. Apparently interest in reliability comes with experience. Also, the survey is only open to those who bought their cars new, and younger people are more likely to buy used cars.

Conversely, the panel is very evenly spread across the entire range from 20 to 69. Not many members over 70, though I have had a couple of members resign because they had become too old to drive.

So, the age distribution is more even than I expected, while the gender distribution is much less even than I expected. As is often the case, it’s better to conduct some research than simply assume.