When the initial emails for the April survey went out, I set some goals. I wanted a response rate of at least 40 percent. At the time, I estimated that, based on the rate at which the panel has been growing, this would require 6,300 responses. I also estimated that this would enable full results on 120 model / model year combinations.

Tomorrow we move on to the May survey. As I write this, there have been 6,350 responses, for a response rate of 40.8 percent. This will enable us to provide full results for 122 model / model year combinations, and asterisked results for another 114. This is up from 92 and 96, respectively, in the February results.

No models is a single response short of a full result, and only one is a single response short of an asterisked result: the 2007 4Runner.

Everyone who has responded, thanks, you made this possible.

And those of you who didn’t respond (who are unlikely to be reading this): if you had, we’ve have full results for over 300 model / model year combinations.

But that’s just not realistic, so I try not to think about it…

Better to remind myself that a response rate of over 40 percent is far better than any other vehicle reliability survey.