It dawned on me while traveling this past weekend that the site could be greatly improved, and many current problems eliminated, if the Vehicle Reliability Survey and Vehicle Repair History Survey were much more tightly integrated. Below you’ll find my initial thoughts. Feedback would be appreciated.

Why haven’t these surveys been integrated all along? It’s a matter of history. The Vehicle Reliability Survey came first, and initially included no place to describe the repair. Nearly a year later the Vehicle Repair History Survey was added to do things the Vehicle Reliability Survey could not: include models below the minimum sample size, include repairs that occurred before someone joined, and include repair descriptions and post them to the site. Soon afterwards, the Vehicle Reliability Survey was revised to include a description, but to aid in error checking.

Problem is, while it is possible to participate in both surveys, the effort involved is needlessly redundant. And I fear that many people think that the Vehicle Repair History Survey is the main survey, and so don’t respond to the Vehicle Relibility Survey. Many others find the distinction confusing.

Much more closely integrating the two surveys will reduce or even eliminate these problems, while providing more informatioin to site visitors. I wish I’d thought of it sooner, but better late than never.

What will this integration entail?

First, the descriptions submitted with the Vehicle Reliability Survey will be posted along with the results to the Vehicle Repair History Survey. So people participating in the former will no longer have to enter their repairs a second time in the latter. If an entry is still made in the Vehicle Repair History Survey, it will override any entry for the same month in the Vehicle Reliability Survey. This will allow members to add additional detail or fix typos.

Second, members whose vehicles are not yet eligible for the Vehicle Reliability Survey will be much more strongly encouraged to participate in the Vehicle Repair History Survey, and this might be required of new members. A link to the survey will be provided in every third monthly update, with the expectation that the record for a vehicle be updated quarterly.

Some Vehicle Reliability Survey participants might not want their repairs posted to the site, even though there will be no way to identify the owners of the cars. It will be possible to opt out of this, but people who do not want their repairs posted to the site will also not be able to view those posted by others. Think of it as the vehicle reliability version of “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

These changes will require many changes to the various programs involved, so they’ll probably take a month or two to fully implement. No doubt further wrinkles will be added along the way. I look forward to members’ suggestions. As the integration progresses, further details will be posted here.

In the end, we’ll have a much more useful, less confusing site.