No. My hood can attest to this.

Huh? I have an '07, and I haven't had any problems with my HVAC... or will I?

How do you figure this is right? You say Toyota's trying to make the tC better (and they have been, for the most part), but the CR report says it's getting worse every year?

 

A lot of 07's had issues with the HVAC lighting not working suddenly. They will come on until you turn on the lights, at which point a lot of it will turn off. Very common issue actually. I think it was mostly the early 07's.

I know from designing the LED mods for them that that circuit layout is different on the 07 and up. And it seems that the dimmer logic is backwards from the earlier years, so it makes sense that if there is an issue, it would be related to that and would show up right after they changed something. But I have not yet had an 07 in my hands, along with the car to use for testing, with the issue. So I have not been able to troubleshoot it.

 

I have an early '07. Dammit.

 

I mentioned earlier the major difference between CR and JD. Who exactly is tearing apart Consumer Reports?

 

Well, I am, for what that's worth. It isn't based on anything completely unbiased or subjective like dealer service records vs. dealer units sold. It's based entirely on people writing in saying how much they hate their car.

 

And as has been proven, people pleased with a vehicle tend to say nothing, and people who are irritated by a little squeak or rattle scream like their buttholes are on fire.

 

Anyone I have ever met with a statistics background for one But there was a nice article out there a couple of years ago where a couple of them broke it down to pure statistical rules.. and pretty much debunked any sort of result obtained by CR. If I can search it up I will post a link to it.

I can tell you from what I know a few things though. First most surveys from survey based CR-type places are not returned. I believe (and feel free to correct me, since it has a been a number of years since my last Research Methodology class) you need a 90% return rate approx. for any survey to be statistically reliable. I think the norm is below 50% for these types of surveys.

Then there are all the swing factors:

1. People tend to put effort into reporting the negative, not the positive. Look at forums for example. If you read the forums on most cars, you will quickly come to the conclusion that they have nothing but issues. Rattles in the tC for one. I have an 05 with none of them, and have never seen a tC in person that had them. Yet if you read the forums, ever tC known to man has nothing but rattles. Again, people dont come out and post just to say "Hey, my car has nothing wrong with it"

2. The types of "issues". Most reports pretty much just look at number of issues, regardless of type. So a squeaky radio door will be lumped in with dash falling into your lap while driving

3. Type of car. Most that spend a lot of time around cars know that BMW's are not by any means off the charts in terms of reliability. I would say on par, or maybe below, your average Toyota or Honda to be quite honest. And actually, I know a few people who do nothing but drive thiers back and forth to work every day and have rattles and running issues at 50,000 miles. However, in general, your average BMW owner has more money and will be more likely to take it back to their dealer for each and every recommended check up and anytime it makes so much as a fart. So they are typically better maintained than your average kid driving a civic, changing the oil ever 50,000 miles and potentially pretending it is a race car every day

It is VERY hard to come up with any sort of reliable statistic regarding cars due to these and other variables. Then throw in to the mix that most reviewers will tend to compare the car to a volvo, bmw, etc and now you have partiality in the mix. So you are just as well off talking to owners of various ones and some mechanics that spend time working on them. My father is a mechanic, and tends to have a LOT better info on many cars than I can find anywhere else. Whether it be from the ones his customers own or what info he gets through dealers and parts houses.

 

http://www.allpar.com/cr.html

http://blipverts.wordpress.com/2008/...statistics-ii/

A couple that talk about this

 

And not car related, but another nice look at some of their "Data" used when surveying. Also, a good example of how their non-random sampling methods fail. Again, without a very high response rate, your sample can no longer be considered random.

http://crosslandteam.com/blog/2008/0...ealtor-survey/

 

What a hilarious image.

Purely for reference, I'm averaging one service jaunt every 30,000 miles or so. One for the sunroof rattle, and one for my power steering pump and belt exploding and catching fire (which was my fault). I'd say that's pretty good.