If A Car Rattles, Consumer Reports Tattles | East Haddam testing center puts vehicles through their paces
The orange Ford Edge in the garage of Consumer Reports' test center in East Haddam has drawn the ire of director David Champion.
Showing off the center in advance of the magazine's annual auto recommendations, which once again favors Japanese vehicles, Champion grabs the latch on the Edge's tailgate and gives it an exaggerated tug. The tailgate budges but doesn't open.
"The leverage is absolutely incredible!" Champion says. "If you lived with it in everyday life, it would drive you nuts."
Because the Edge is a new vehicle it was not a recommended buy, but the magazine said early impressions were good, citing a strong powertrain and quiet interior.
As overseer of Consumer Reports' auto testing, Champion was able to deliver his concerns directly to Ford Chief Executive Alan Mulally on a recent visit. It's the kind of detail that eventually could wind up in the review for the Edge, one that might be seen by more potential buyers than any other.
The nonprofit magazine has leveraged its independence from advertisers and a subscriber base of nearly 6 million readers to become the main arbiter of quality and taste in American cars and trucks.
Consumer Reports' subjectivity doesn't sit well in Detroit, where auto executives say they believe Consumer Reports reflects an East Coast, import-centric view that doesn't give enough credit to the strides Motown carmakers have made.
For the second year in a row, Detroit's automakers were shut out of the magazine's top picks, while vehicles from Honda Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. took seven of the 10 slots.
The magazine has not had an American car on its top picks list since April 2005, when it booted the Ford Focus for failing a crash test.
Chrysler spokesman Jason Vines notes that, while Consumer Reports will recommend a brand-new model from Honda or Toyota, it will not do so for all-new vehicles from General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. or Chrysler Group.
"Is that inherently fair?" Vines asked. "They will not recommend one of our products out of the gate, no matter how good it is ... We have no chance. We have to go through a different door."
With a staff of 22 people, a budget of $2.8 million to buy new vehicles and a 327-acre test site, Consumer Reports attempts to mimic the punishment consumers put their cars through over several years.
Every year, the center puts 85 vehicles through a battery of more than 50 tests. Many are closely measured, but some rely on subjective evaluations, such as the Edge's tailgate.
For its tests, Consumer Reports buys its vehicles randomly from dealers. After breaking them in for about 2,000 miles, the center will put up to another 6,000 miles on them in testing and everyday driving.
After the tests, staffers distill results into ratings on a 100-point scale. If a vehicle scores well and has average crash test scores and reliability based on surveys of 1.3 million vehicles owned by subscribers, it can win a recommendation. For a top recommendation, a vehicle must score better than average on safety.
Those reliability surveys are the reason the magazine holds off recommending all-new models from Detroit, said spokesman Douglas Love. He said Detroit's models have been inconsistent in reliability, especially with all-new vehicles.
"With Honda and Toyota, because of the consistency of the vehicles, because we see carried-over content and existing platforms, we are able on a regular basis to recommend new vehicles more often than we are with domestic manufacturers," he said.
Detroit automakers say year after year of results that trumpet Honda, Toyota and a few other foreign automakers reflect history rather than any strides made with new models.
"There is no bigger focus at GM than on quality, reliability, delighting our customer, and most of these measures that we use on those areas tell us we're on the right track," said GM spokesman Chris Preuss. "We're confident that reality will eventually catch up with Consumer Reports' perspective."
This year's auto issue also comes after the retraction of Consumer Reports' story last month questioning the crashworthiness of child car seats, a faulty report that spooked millions of parents and forced federal safety officials to emphasize the need for all children to ride in some sort of restraint.
While the inaccurate tests were performed by an outside lab and overseen by another division of Consumer Reports, Champion said it caused lasting damage to the magazine's reputation.
"The child seat issue was a very regrettable error," he said. "It's one of those things that I think, personally, it's going to take us five years to recover, to get back the credibility you've lost. You're always rated on your worst piece of product."
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