[net.auto] Looking for a car

david1 (04/15/83)

How about some feedback  on  the  VW  Jetta  and  the  Oldsmobile
Cutlass  Cierra?   Also  what  do  you  out there think about the
accuracy of Consumer Reports rating of cars in general?   If  one
were  to go strictly by them one would never buy an American car.
The Japanese cars get all the best ratings.  Consumer's seems  to
give  double  messages.   They'll  rate  a  car  average or below
average and then say it's  one  of  the  cars  they  prefer.   An
article  on  a  car  will be basically positive but then the last
paragraph will describe the defects they had  upon  delivery  and
they'll say in so many words that one shouldn't buy it.

I'm looking for a new car in the $9000-10000 range that is a  bit
bigger than a subcompact especially in cargo area.

Any thoughts on the subject will be appreciated.   If  there  are
enough replies I'll post the results.

                                                 RICK NELSON
                                                 RD BTL
                                                 mhuxh!david1

tom (04/20/83)

Concerning Consumer Report's repair incidence reports:

I like what they are trying to implement with two measures: incidence
of repairs and cost of repairs.  In the 2 previous years, for example,
Dodge Omni got ratings of "incidence of repairs: worse than average (possibly
much worse than average I don't remember)" and "cost of repairs: better
than average".  I thought taking the 2 together gave a decent idea of
the car -- several minor problems but no (or few) major ones (like the
Chevy transmission).

Unfortunately, this year the replies were not enough for them to publish
(it was hard sitting down trying to think of how much you spent on the
car last year).  But its a good idea, so all of you CR members, lets
make an extra effort to give more and better information the next time!

- Tom Beres
{we13, mcnc, seismo} rlgvax!tom

pal (04/20/83)

I had always thought that Mercedes-Benz made SAFE automobiles,
but the current Consumer Reports, based on NHTSA figures, lists the
240D as "fatal injury certain" in a 35 m.p.h. crash.
Anyone know what gives?

rmiller (04/23/83)

#R:mhuxh:-11200:ccvaxa:4900005:000:389
ccvaxa!rmiller    Apr 23 13:58:00 1983

back on the subject of the ciera, i had one as a rental car once which
means i am NOT the person to ask about driveability, but my opinion of
the car went down a whole lot when i noticed the engineering work used
to make the glove compartment door cover twice the space on the dash
that the glove compartment used up. it's just REALLY silly how detroit
can screw up on the little details.