[Breezy]

Consumer Reports has updated their owner satisfaction ratings.

The score is simply the percentage of survey respondents who answered "definitely yes" to the question: "Considering all factors (price, performance, reliability, comfort, enjoyment, etc.), would you get this car if you had to do it all over again?" I was one of them.

Note that this is not the same as asking what car or brand you plan to buy next. The media often get that confused.

The Volt is up a bit from 85 last year. You're about as likely to be happy with a Volt as you are with a Miata, 911 or Corvette.

Model S 94
Model X 92
Miata 91
Volt 90
911 90
Corvette 90
Camaro 89
Prius 88
Macan 87
Leaf 65

 

[BAZINGA]

I have NEVER been invited to a CR survey, but I did respond to the JD Powers survey I received on my 2017 Volt.

 

[Barry]

Every CR subscriber is sent a survey form.

 

[srs5694]

Note that, although the owner satisfaction ratings remain high, the newly-released reliability survey shows the 2016 redesign has reliability problems; it's "poor" (the worst score) overall, with problem areas in the gas engine, body integrity, and audio systems. I hope that's just teething problems with the new design. (Such problems are common; reliability often drops a bit for the first year of a redesign, then improves over the next couple of years.)

 

[sunil100]

CR rates Volt as "far below average"

Yikes. Reliability rates as "far below average". I am about to buy (lease on my Leaf expires nov 30) and now this. Any comments on what CR says and what aspects are considered unreliable ?

 

[ChiVolt]

First-year production runs tend to be problematic. However, a very short 2016 production year made the Volt stats even worse in my opinion. The norm is that first year production runs tend to improve as assembly problems are debugged - with stats following production improvement as the year progresses. However, 2016 production year was so short that only the first, and most problematic, months bear in the statistics.

You can get a feel for Volt gen2 problems by eyeing the stickies and posts in this forum section:
http://gm-volt.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?545-Problems-Issues-Driver-Warnings-or-DTCs-Gen2-Volt

Buy a 2017 model with a recent production date, if you want to distance yourself from Volt gen2 production start-up woes.

 

[Steverino]

My first year, 2011 Volt is the best car I have ever owned, hands down. Essentially zero problems with over 80K miles and 5+ years. Yes, like other cars, there have been some recalls, but all were handled well. To date, I have spent $36 out of pocket on maintenance (an oil change). Some Volt owners have had a few issues, but my Volt is a rock star.

 

[Qinsp]

I have a hunch CR doesn't vet their sources. If they do, I'm one incredibly lucky guy. I stood only a 1 out 44 chance of receiving two flawless Gen 2 Volts according to Consumer Reports.

They are not exactly car savvy either. Nor consistent. In a short interval, they say the Model S Tesla is so damn good, they need to make a new scoring scale. No car in history has ever been better. Then they put them on the THIS SUCKS list, then they just put them back on the OMFG list. All in what? A year? Next week? Who knows? It might be the Anti-Christ, or the solution for world hunger.

Loved their New Prius Review: It's a superb handling car that has super pretty dash lights. Comedy.

 

[llninja]

I stopped using consumer reports since the mid 80's, because they were warped on Japanese cars and want to find the most features for the least amount of money. The dual line phone and microwave I purchased based on their recommendations both broke 1 month after the warranty ran out. I no longer try to get the cheapest item with most features, I now look for quality items that are well made and last. So instead of Panasonic, Whirlpool, Dell, and GE person I became a Sony (trinitron tv days), Apple, Bosch, Amana kind of guy.

And I stopped reading CR.

 

[16513]

My early '16 has been near-flawless, but I don't use much of the infotainment stuff and from what I read here in the forum many problems are infotainment related. With only one service visit in a year (software update) everything is working as advertised.

 

[Qinsp]

Most "problems" today are Infotainment and Noise/Vibration/Harshness.

 

[Dutch]

CR has had some very...odd... bias in the past and once I looked into their research methods I shook my head and walked away.

If one is going to try and position oneself as "the authority" for this sort of thing then true scientific method and reproducible testing become a little more important in my book.

 

[Barry]

I agree CR's conclusions have to be taken with a heavy dose of skepticism, but what is a better source for this kind of information? The "Car magazines" are far worse. Most websites I have seen appear to be similar to the car magazines.

One flaw I believe exists with CR car reports is a failure to consider the price of the car. They might compare two midsize sedans, one costing $35K and the other costing $28K. They will correctly note that the $35K car is better. But I already could have guessed that. Which one is a better value?

 

[srs5694]

Any comments on what CR says and what aspects are considered unreliable ?

I noted that in my comment: the gas engine, body integrity, and audio systems got the worst scores. (New cars are so reliable on average, though, that it's sometimes hard to pin down problem areas for new models; there are so few problems in specific areas, even for cars that are bad overall, that statistical significance is lacking.) For details, see their web site. (You'll need to subscribe to get every detail.)

I have a hunch CR doesn't vet their sources.

In survey research (as their reliability ratings are), "vetting" of sources is a bad thing -- good survey research takes a random sample and does not exclude ("vet") data, unless there's a strong reason to think the survey's being manipulated. Where CR can be criticized on this is that their sample is arguably non-random, since it consists of CR subscribers. I have yet to see a good argument for why that particular variety of non-randomness might invalidate their results, though. Even if it did, the fact that their results are derived from their readers' experiences may make it those results more valuable for their readers, even if not for the general population.

They are not exactly car savvy either. Nor consistent. In a short interval, they say the Model S Tesla is so damn good, they need to make a new scoring scale. No car in history has ever been better. Then they put them on the THIS SUCKS list, then they just put them back on the OMFG list.

Like many criticisms of CR, this one is based on lack of understanding. A couple years ago, the Tesla Model S produced the highest road test score of any car. (The road test includes things like acceleration, fuel economy, cargo capacity, seating comfort, etc. -- but not reliability, customer satisfaction, and some other measures.) At that time, its reliability was average. In order to be recommended by CR, a car had to score highly on the road test and get at least average reliability. The Model S met those criteria and so was recommended -- and got a lot of positive press because of its record-setting road-test score. The next year, though, the Model S's reliability dropped just enough for it to be disqualified from recommendation. Its road test results were still excellent, though. Now the reliability has increased again to average, so it's back on the recommended list. There's nothing weird, conspiratorial, or incompetent about this; CR simply has a hard cutoff of "average" reliability to recommend a car.

Coincidentally, CR also changed the way it presented its results about a year ago. If you looked at lists of cars before then, they were ranked according to their road test scores, which meant you could see something at the top of the list that was not recommended because it was unreliable. They've now created a new overall score that includes the road test score, reliability, and other measures, and they present cars ordered by this new overall score. The intent was to reduce confusion in readers, but of course if you didn't understand the nature of this change and compared auto rankings from two different times, you'd see rather significant changes to the order and score, which might be confusing.