Ford Fusion, Mercury Milan Reliability Tops Honda Accord and Toyota Camry

[pauldun170]

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/10/27/f...-annual-relia/

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Ahem. I don't know why, but CR has the spin machine up to full speed. Read this article for comparison.

People please, if you are gonna buy a car, research the DATA, not the headlines.

http://content.usatoday.com/communit...10/620000592/1

Why is Consumer Reports stacking the deck for Ford in its reliability survey?


Every time a new auto reliability survey comes out, automakers who did well are quick to respond. So the headline that blared from the press release yesterday shouldn't have come as a surprise: "Ford Secures Place Among World's Most Reliable Automakers," it read. "Ford Fusion, Mercury Milan Reliability Tops Honda Accord and Toyota Camry."


Just one problem. The release didn't come from Ford. It came from Consumer Reports.

The magazine conducts an annual survey that is arguably the single most powerful force for moving market share in the auto industry. Why? Because the survey reaches readers who rated 1.4 million vehicles. The magazine is run by a non-profit that refuses to accept advertising and cultivates a fierce reputation for independence. CR prides itself on taking courageous stands against powerful companies when it finds products or services that don't match up, or constitute outfraud fraud or a safety risk.

We dutifully reported the auto reliability survey results and Ford's triumph, along with other news outlets. But there are some big mysteries surrounding why CR ballyhoos Ford:

On individual models by category, Ford Fusion is singled out for beating Accord and Camry for most reliable, but it didn't even place first in the family-car category. First place went to Toyota Prius, followed by Volvo S40. Fusion came in third and Milan fourth. Interestingly, only Camry hybrid, not the conventional version, made the list below the two Ford models. Accord didn't show up at all.
Toyota or its Lexus luxury division placed first in six of 10 categories, but that fact didn't rate high on CR's news spin or the article on the survey for the magazine. Nor did Honda placing first in two categories. Ford, General Motors or Chrysler didn't place first in any category.

Ford's position as the "only Detroit automaker with world-class reliability" isn't borne out by CR's accompanying chart ranking brands for predicted reliability of 2010 models. Out of 33 brands, Mercury ranked 10th, Ford was 16th and Lincoln was 20th. That's "world class?" Seven Japanese brands led the pack.
Did Ford get its "world class" ranking by boldly moving up in the charts in the past year? Nope. The Ford brand rose a single notch. Mercury rose five places and Lincoln sank nine. To find momentum, one need not look farther than GM-reject Saab, which rose 12 places in the survey to 11th place, just behind Mercury. Porsche rose 10 places to finish 9th. And CR's response?
CR Senior Auto Engineer Jake Fisher played down the brand survey, saying "people don't buy the brand. They buy the individual car." Then why bother with the brand ranking? Because it's "taking into account their entire portfolio," Fisher replied. "The chart looks at automakers as a whole." But wait, we thought you just said people care about individual models? And so it went.

Ford wasn't much help either in trying to explain CR's singling out of the brand. Ford Group Vice President Bennie Fowler, in charge of quality, quoted from the magazine's finding about how many of its models were now ranked average or better for quality (46 of 51, or 90%), but when asked about the middle-of-the-pack average, he replied that improvement is continuous. "We're not satisfied with rankings or results," Fowler said.

So why is independent CR so intent on buttering up Ford? We'll stop asking when the survey results match the public-relations rhetoric.