Mercedes still may profit from Chrysler

Really? I thought if you wanted to know how something holds up, you'd
try to wear it out under repeatable, verifiable, controlled
conditions. (All things CU surveys lack.)

 

Remind me never to mention Lloyd's name again. I think I mentioned
something about his absence from RAD in a thread a week or two ago, and
speak of the devil.

nate

 

I pointed out CR is where you can read about reliability and you
chided me for not reading SAE engineering journals instead.

It can for the purpose they're intended -- not as an absolute guide
(5% of Caravans experience problems) but as a relative one (a larger %
of Caravans experience problems than do Odysseses).

 

References? All I've ever seen you post are blogs and opinions.

Again, if there is bias, why would it be different for Chrysler vs
Honda?

Simply not true. You can stiull use them for relative comparisons.
Or do you think Chrysler owners interpret the questions differently
from Honda owners?

 

This is as relevant to the discussion at hand as talking about the
computers in the Space Shuttle when comparing Dell and Mac
reliability.

 

OK, you take hundreds of autos (oh, and 10 model years of each one)
and run them each for thousands of miles (oh, and try to get some info
in time for it to be useful to people reading it).

Or, look up large number statistics and averaging out of conditions.

 

No, I stated it brought back memories of the great ABS threads where you
insisted on getting your engineering from C&D and CR.

It's worse than reading reviews on amazon.com. At least amazon.com allows
people to explain things, they write it out. CR well you get a bunch of
symbols.

 

Again you demonstrate you have no clue what so ever about engineering.
You don't even grasp the conceptual level.

 

Yeah, kind of like graphs in those journals, eh? Gee, you actually
have to read some text to know what the graph represents. Maybe CR
readers are smart enough to do that. You?

 

Guess that went over your head. It's not I or anyone else can't read the
key to see what the symbols mean, it's that CR has by confines of their
survey and their data processing has removed the details.

For instance, in reading the reviews of a company online or ebay or
whatever I tend to hit that 'worst' button and read those. I can tell by
what they wrote if they were the dumbass or the company was doing
something wrong. Can't do that with CR. No way to tell if their result has
been skewed for a particular model by one or three dumbasses who never
changed the oil. Can't tell with CR if the results are skewed by people
who overly nit-picky for a particular vehicle. There's no way to tell
between real fit and finish issues or people who thought the bottom the
floor pans should be painted body color and polished. On amazon the guy
concerned about polished floor pans is written off as nutty, on CR he
impacts the result.

 

Uh.... where did I ever imply that we should be asking (only) the
car-company engineers (for which the MS engineers would be a metaphor in
the foregoeing example. *I* said that I give more credence to what
engineering-knowledgable drivers and reviewers (magazines other than CR,
Car and Driver, Motor Trend, etc) have to say.

People who know no better than to list the "engine" as unreliable when
they have a problem with the alternator are indeed worth far less (as
useful reviewers, not as human beings) than people who know the
difference, and know that the alternator is made by Nippondenso and not
by Chrysler anyway.

It affects every damn thing CR reviews, which is why the magazine is
worthless even for buying a toaster.

 

Nate Nagel wrote:

That tears it. You owe us all a shiny new crate engine of our
choosing...