A fourth change to the Car Reliability Survey

In the past, only successfully completed repairs were included in our analysis of responses to the Car Reliability Survey. This was done to provide the most precise results possible given our often small sample sizes.

Problem was, this excluded the worst problems–those that lead a person to get rid of a car–from the analysis. So, starting with this month’s survey, we’ve added “sold, traded, donated, or junked instead of repairing” to the list of problem outcomes.

I’ve also gone back over responses for the past year and recoded those that fit this new outcome. So this week’s results will include problems that resulted in the disposal of a car, even if these problems were not first repaired.

This change will generally affect only the results for old cars and for the most troublesome new cars.