Consumer Reports: Saturn

"marx404" > wrote in message
...
>
> Im not saying that the ION is the nicest looking, it isnt, nor am I saying
> it is the most trouble free, it isnt, but my proof has always been talking
> to actual owners which I do every day.
>
> marx404
>
>

Which is no proof at all.

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 07:10:53 -0500, "marx404" > wrote:

>What Im saying here guys, is not deceptive. CR is biased and thier articles
>are based on testing older models than what is currently availiable, if not
>based upon outdated information. Thier reccomendation of the Focus IMHO was
>reprehensible and biased, the '05 reviews on Saturns were based on outdated
>info. 6 months after the VUE had been redesigned, CR was still publishing
>that it failed the rollover testing which was incorrect as that issue was
>already fixed. I could go on but I'll spare you.

Quoting from the Oct. '04 issue. "As this issue went to press,
General Motors Corp. recalled all the Saturn Vue sport utility
vehicles it had ever made." [omit middle of 210 word article] "The
auto maker will replace the rear suspension components 'to make it
more robust,' according to the Saturn spokesman." What about this
was not timely and accurate?

BTW, the Vue did not simply fail the rollover test. Not one but two
different vehicles actually suffered catastrophic suspension failure
in the middle of the test.

>Just so you know, we always keep a number of current mags at our desk
>including CR so ppl can actually read the articles. When they get to CR, we
>always have alternate (and more updated) info onhand to correct thier faux
>pas.

I take it that you are a Saturn salesman. To the extent that Saturn
is correcting problems noted in CR reviews, that is a good thing. But
you can hardly expect CR to mail out paste-in footnotes on every
detail of every car that changes after the issue is published.

>Now IMHO, the ecotec engine is far better than the old shaky 1.9.

Twelve years of technology advancement will do that.

>Yes, the
>ION is not a cute as the old S series and everyone says so in every mag.

You will never find such a statement in CR.

> I
>cant wait for the '08 makeover myself. As far as reliability, recent year
>IONs have had a few more issues (especially electric and battery related)
>but none critical enough to deserve the awful rap that CR gives it.

Any reliability "rap" that CR gives it is based on the experiences of
Saturn owners. Unlike your experience based on Saturn owners, this is
a scientific survey of 810,000 car owners. It is as objective as it
could reasonably be.

Reliability is not factored into the actual rating anyway. The rating
(actually called "Overall Score") is based on their own testing and
evaluation alone. Reliability from the survey is reported separately
from the rating. Those two factors, along with published crash tests,
are considered when CR recommends the car (or not).

In the case of the Ion, it doesn't have much of a reliability record
yet, but what there is indicates it is worse than average. That makes
it ineligible for recommendation. But even if it was the most
reliable car ever built, it still wouldn't be recommended because of
its poor Overall Score - it ranked 14th out of 16 small cars. It also
failed IIHS side impact tests but to be fair, most of the recommended
cars haven't been tested yet. The only one tested, The Toyota Corolla
only passes (and is only recommended) with the optional side curtain
air bags.

>As far as safety, I will stand by the personal stories my customers have
>told me throughout the years how even in a bad accident, they have walked
>out of an ION virtually unscathed. No magazine portrays that as well as
>physically speaking to a Saturn owner who has gone thru that and returns for
>another ION.

Now this is what we call, selection bias. Presumably the dead ones
didn't come back to complain.

>Im not saying that the ION is the nicest looking, it isnt, nor am I saying
>it is the most trouble free, it isnt, but my proof has always been talking
>to actual owners which I do every day.

By the way, do you show your customers the Car & Driver issue where
the long term testers absolutely trashed the Ion? IIRC, one tester
thought it had a few redeeming features and the other two thought he
was on drugs.

Apparently they came to the same conclusion as CR. And they were more
fun to read.

marx404 wrote:

> Now IMHO, the ecotec engine is far better than the old shaky 1.9. Yes, the
> ION is not a cute as the old S series and everyone says so in every mag. I
> cant wait for the '08 makeover myself. As far as reliability, recent year
> IONs have had a few more issues (especially electric and battery related)
> but none critical enough to deserve the awful rap that CR gives it.

It wouldn't be so bad if the competition had similar reliability issues.
But Saturn has earned a bad reputation for long term dependability,
especially with all the cracked head problems, the alternator failures,
timing chain failures, and the oil burning. These problems are expensive
to fix, and in some cases they are recurring because of design flaws
(i.e. the alternator failures in the S series were due to the poor
placement in the engine compartment which resulted in excessive heat).

Look at the J.D. Power Long term dependability results during the past
few years, Saturn is always just slightly above, or just slightly below
average,

2005: "http://www.jdpower.com/news/releases/pressrelease.asp?ID=2005089"
2004: "http://www.jdpa.com/news/releases/pressrelease.asp?ID=2004055"
2003: "http://www.jdpa.com/news/releases/pressrelease.asp?ID=2003050"

But even these figures don't tell the whole story, because they fail to
distinguish between minor problems and major problems.

It isn't that Saturn is so bad, it's that some of the competitors are so
much better.

What also hurts Saturn is that unlike some of their competitors, they
procrastinate admitting known problems, and sometimes never admit them
and fix them. Every Saturn dealer knows about the oil burning problem,
and will even admit it to customers, but the corporation never did
anything about it, instead they simply claimed that the oil consumption
rate was "normal" during the warranty, and once the car was out of
warranty it was just too bad.

> As far as safety, I will stand by the personal stories my customers have
> told me throughout the years how even in a bad accident, they have walked
> out of an ION virtually unscathed. No magazine portrays that as well as
> physically speaking to a Saturn owner who has gone thru that and returns for
> another ION.

Because you can find such anecdotes for any vehicle, no matter how poor
or how well it does in the crash tests. Saturn created a powerful
marketing tool with the "safety cage" but in reality the crash test
results prove that it was a myth.

The 40mph frontal offset crash test by the IIHS is the primary standard
by which consumers that are interested in safety compare vehicles. Look
at the small car ratings at
"http://www.iihs.org/ratings/summary.aspx?class=40". This really hurts
Saturn because all the rationalizations in the world cannot change the
test results.

Produce a 40 mpg vehicle that does well in the crash tests, and back it
up with a 10 year/100K powertrain, 5 year/60K bumper to bumper warranty
to allay consumer fears about reliability. The latter is what brought
Hyundai back from the brink, despite continuing reliability issues, at
least the consumer is somewhat protected.

"marx404" > wrote in message
...
> wow, Im not trolling here guys, but fish, ya make me laugh, think about
> it.
> You have had your trusty Saturn 9 yrs and you question its reliability?
>
> What Im saying here guys, is not deceptive. CR is biased and thier
> articles
> are based on testing older models than what is currently availiable, if
> not
> based upon outdated information. Thier reccomendation of the Focus IMHO
> was
> reprehensible and biased, the '05 reviews on Saturns were based on
> outdated
> info. 6 months after the VUE had been redesigned, CR was still publishing
> that it failed the rollover testing which was incorrect as that issue was
> already fixed. I could go on but I'll spare you.
>
> <snip>
>
> Im not saying that the ION is the nicest looking, it isnt, nor am I saying
> it is the most trouble free, it isnt, but my proof has always been talking
> to actual owners which I do every day.

marx404, I've always enjoyed reading your posts, back from the time
before you went to work for Saturn and as you have continued on as both a
Saturn sales rep and a customer. But this thread has made me laugh, as well.
This is principally because I first became a Saturn owner (back in '94)
BECAUSE of what CR said about the SL. And, even as a victim of the dreaded
casting flaw, which cost me over $1000 (Saturn paid more than 1/2), I would
still buy another new SL if they were still manufactured. Talking to a few
(dozen?) owners who come into your dealership is not, IMHO, as good an
indicator of an auto's reliability as a broad survey of owners, including
those who don't take their cars into their dealerships for service. I don't
know from personal knowledge that that is how CR derives its reliability
ratings but from my experience with cars (including my two Saturn SLs), CR's
information has been pretty consistent with that experience so I'll continue
to trust them. On other matters, I'll continue to trust you.

> As far as safety, I will stand by the personal stories my customers have
told me throughout the years how even in a bad accident, they have
walked
out of an ION virtually unscathed. No magazine portrays that as well as
physically speaking to a Saturn owner who has gone thru that and
returns for
another ION.

Our 1997 took a diagonal rear-end strike at 75mph by a drunk jerk in a
3000GT and we walked away unscathed. The car was destroyed - the trunk
had basically disappeared in a diagonal from the passenger to the
driver's side - but we weren't hurt at all.

We bought a '99 not long after that. They're safe.

mh

Well I have no reason to lie to you guys here and definantely dont intend to
upset anyone, but I will stick with what I know and what has been physically
proven to me.
CR is a punch in the eye to me so pardon if I go on a rage about it. Thier
auto reviews are a topic of controversy to everyone in the auto industry,
not just Saturn. It is just a shame that CR harbors such hate towards Saturn
products year after year.

Really now, if Saturns were as awful as the way CR continiually demonizes
them year after year, would there be so many loyal owners out there,
including ourselves? Use your own judgement ppl, not what some book tells
you. ;-) I wonder if and how CR will slam the SKY and Aura when they go into
production? Not saying they will, but history repeats itself and so does CR
mag.

So I hope its cool to say "lets agree to disagree" shake hands and move on;
until this same topic comes up again - verbatim, next issue, lol. ;-)

marx404

"marx404" > wrote in message
...
> Well I have no reason to lie to you guys here and definantely dont intend
> to
> upset anyone, but I will stick with what I know and what has been
> physically
> proven to me.

But isn't your sample size considerably smaller than CR's potential
range? Consider: here's proof that all positive integers are divisible only
by either themselves or 1: 1 is divisible only by itself and 1; 2 is
divisible only by itself and 1; 3 is divisible only by itself and 1; QED.
What's relevant, though, is (if I understand you correctly) that you don't
consider CR reporting of Saturn's reliability to be reliable. Fair enough
(and I do not necessarily disagree that this may be true lately, I simply
have no evidence either way).

> CR is a punch in the eye to me so pardon if I go on a rage about it. Thier
> auto reviews are a topic of controversy to everyone in the auto industry,
> not just Saturn. <snip>

Of course, anyone whose ox is gored is going to consider the gorer to be
giving them a "punch in the eye."

> Really now, if Saturns were as awful as the way CR continiually demonizes
> them year after year, would there be so many loyal owners out there,
> including ourselves? <snip>

The fact that owners of 1990 - 2000 Saturns are pretty loyal and
satisfied does not necessarily mean that owners of 2001 - 2006 Saturns are
loyal and satisfied (relative to alternatives).

> So I hope its cool to say "lets agree to disagree" shake hands and move
> on;
> until this same topic comes up again - verbatim, next issue, lol. ;-)

If you offered a reasonable rebuttal to what I am saying and neither of
us could not convince the other that (s)he were wrong, then I'd "agree to
disagree" but so far I don't see that as having happened. It looks to me
that you are saying that CR isn't (hasn't ever been?) a reliable source of
information about Saturns but I'm not saying it always has been; I am saying
that I bought my first Saturn in 1994 mostly because of the positive things
CR had to say about Saturn and you have not said anything I can interpret as
rebuttal.

marx404 wrote:
> Well I have no reason to lie to you guys here and definantely dont intend to
> upset anyone, but I will stick with what I know and what has been physically
> proven to me.
> CR is a punch in the eye to me so pardon if I go on a rage about it.

Saturn has almost always been upset with CR's statistics, but they
haven't ever been able to counter them with any facts. This is why all
these great anecdotes are necessary.

> auto reviews are a topic of controversy to everyone in the auto industry,
> not just Saturn. It is just a shame that CR harbors such hate towards Saturn
> products year after year.

You really are delusional. CR's reliability ratings are not their own
evaluation, they are based on tens of thousands of surveys that they
send out to owners. Their recommendations are based on safety, value,
fuel economy, and reliability. The fact that Saturn rarely excels in any
of these area, is why Saturn products are not recommended more.

> Really now, if Saturns were as awful as the way CR continiually demonizes
> them year after year, would there be so many loyal owners out there,
> including ourselves?

Again, you are deluding yourself.

> So I hope its cool to say "lets agree to disagree" shake hands and move on;
> until this same topic comes up again - verbatim, next issue, lol. ;-)

Agreeing to disagree is a cop-out. You have not provided a single shred
of supporting evidence for your position.

"fish" > wrote in message
news:XTfif.2134$tg3.142@trnddc02...
> None of the Saturn cars for the 2006 New Car Preview edition of Consumer
> Reports have been recommended.
>
> Saturn: A different kind of company.
>
> --
> ______________
> =====fish=====

Though the Toyota Prius which had a 100% recall because of software flaws
that could leave you stranded in the middle of the highway, because of
engine shutdown, got their highest rating......Think they are not
biased...think again.

On Thu, 1 Dec 2005 17:19:41 -0600, "Seamus's Stuff"
> wrote:

>
>"fish" > wrote in message
>news:XTfif.2134$tg3.142@trnddc02...
>> None of the Saturn cars for the 2006 New Car Preview edition of Consumer
>> Reports have been recommended.
>>
>> Saturn: A different kind of company.
>>
>> --
>> ______________
>> =====fish=====
>
>Though the Toyota Prius which had a 100% recall because of software flaws
>that could leave you stranded in the middle of the highway, because of
>engine shutdown, got their highest rating......Think they are not
>biased...think again.

A recall (no matter how extensive or serous the problem) doesn't prove
that the car is unreliable overall. If it makes you happy, consider
that the CR reliability ratings for the 2001 - 2004 Prius show that
the electrical system has mediocre reliability even though most other
systems are excellent.