Car-by-Car Breakdown

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Wed 21 May 2003 12:30
Car-by-Car Breakdown - Paul Robinson
'Re J Clarkson not every one can affort to waste 40 - 60k on a car , unless it can be written off for tax.
The avarage punter needs a good cheap to run reliable car for A to B running.
And ALL manufactures build lemons at one time or another, if you took HJ car reviews to heart you would not buy any car.

What would be useful would be HJ total car type sales per month vis compliants/known faults as a percentage.
Any comments?'

I was interested in the above posted by Old Oiler in the Vectra thread, but thought it was best to follow it in a new topic.

I do agree that if you look at the 'What's Bad' and 'What to Watch for' sections, you won't find any car that seems good! For example if you look up Mondeo (1993 to 2000) a frightening amount of faults are listed, yet HJ shouts that he's 'had four years 100% reliability' from his 98R 2.0LX. Also 98 Mondeos didn't do well in J D Power and similar consumer satisfaction surveys.

You can quite understand people being totally confused by such apparently conflicting information. So I agree that some extra detail would be useful, that puts all this information into perspective, to help ordinary average motorists with their decision making.

Any bright ideas?
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Wed 21 May 2003 22:08
Car-by-Car Breakdown - JamesH
It's an interesting idea but it would mean a fair bit of unpaid effort for HJ.

The problem with any statistics, and especially these, is they could be very misleading due to bias. A somewhat stereotyped example (and not necessarily true) is that Honda attracts many elderly buyers, who may be less likely to write in the BR or to HJ about any faults, or have faults rectified quickly by the dealer meaning no need to kick up a fuss. The reliability stats would be artificially improved.

The following thread and others discussed the Warranty Direct index, which is similar to what you would like:
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?f=2&t=12...0
The general view was that it is difficult to draw many genuine conclusions from the results.

The 'What’s Bad' and 'What to watch for' gives, in my opinion, a useful guide to actual issues. A warning to check that a cambelt has been renewed means a lot more than such car having a score of 68.

Each model of car will have good and bad points. These will vary between individual cars down to luck and use. I don't think there is any alternative to weighing up the good and bad points and making a final decision on how those points are important to you.
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