2002 Toyota Tundra SR5 from North America - Off Topic Comments

"Then they had to recant their ratings and report they were actually "worse than average" and remove the "recommended" status."

Thankfully they also stopped recommending new models on the previous model's reliability as well. That reflects well on them too.

My biggest single problem with their data handling is that the final symbol given is based on much below average through much better than average without ever telling us what average is. For all we know the very worst to the very best is an insignificant margin. Maybe the very worst are still extremely good. We should be made more aware. Truedelta helps in that regard.

"Any one who has been involved in data collection in market research has seen a subject trying really hard and getting frustrated and saying something like "what is my response supposed to be?" One way we normally try to control for those kinds of overly involved people is to throw out the very most positive responses, and the very most negative responses. Maybe you don't know that if you ever filled out a survey and gave a product all 10's for very best of everything, that response probably got discarded and not factored into the final tally."

Do you think this includes simply failing to report problems or, worse yet, reporting problems that didn't occur? I ask this because, as I recall, there were no questions like "how would you rate this car on a scale from 1-10". All the questions were objective: What do you own? How many miles are on it? What went wrong?

It would seem unlikely that a respondent would become flustered and *create* a problem with their car (or someone else's). That would seem to be more of an issue if the survey was done via phone. Was that the kind of surveying you did (do)?

When I received my survey, I owned an 04 Honda Civic EX that wasn't screwed together too well. There were several rattles and the B pillar trim kept coming off. I was interested in filling out the survey, in part, so that my experience would help to AMEND the results as displayed in the magazine.

I wasn't interested in being a "yes man". I was interested in getting my more negative experience included in the whole. That kind of response, if typical, could skew the result the other way (the other way from saying that "all my cars are just wonderful") and help to mitigate the errors. The other net effect it could have is that it could make all vehicles look more troublesome --- if only those driven by poor experience respond.

Anyway... it's too bad no one from CR could respond to these comments to further enlighten us.

"But I lost any notion that CR is "unbiased" when I found out that they gave the 2007 and 2008 Camry "better than average" reliability ratings when in fact they had not collected any data on those cars yet"

This is typical of the brainwashing job Japanese companies have done on our media. Only recently has ANYONE really bothered to see if these supposedly "superior" vehicles are all they have been (erroneously) portrayed to be. It turns out that not only are Toyota and Honda (and Nissan) building much lower quality and more unreliable vehicles, but domestics (Ford especially) are literally running rings around all of them in quality, reliability and performance. Any time ANY American automotive publication publishes ANYTHING remotely complimentary about a domestic vehicle, you know that the real truth is that the vehicles are really about TWICE as good as the media outlets claim.

Even when Honda was replacing transmissions at 30,000 miles in many of its vehicles Car and Driver was STILL fawning over them and ignoring the problems. Motor Trend hastily jumped to name the 2007 Camry "Car of the Year" just because Toyota FINALLY had built a V-6 engine for it that could actually do 0-60 in UNDER 10 seconds. They never bothered to look into the dozens of issues Toyota was having at the time with reliability problems.

20:19.

The data isn't skewed. GM agreed that they had fallen below industry standards for both quality and innovation. Everyone isn't just "brainwashed" into thinking that the Japanese vehicles are more reliable. The automotive media isn't telling lies, but domestics (Ford especially) are NOT literally running rings around all of them in quality, reliability and performance.

The 07 Camry goes from 0-60 in 6.5 seconds according to Edmunds (and just about everyone else), not 10 seconds like you incorrectly infer. The 06 was also far quicker than 10 seconds too.

Nearly every company replaces transmissions in vehicles before 30,000 miles --- transmissions are complicated and they sometimes present troubles in varying measures. It's unlikely Motor Trend KNEW that the 07 Camry had any issues since they likely made their selection in 07.

"Nearly every company replaces transmissions in vehicles before 30,000 miles --- "

Yeah, none of our domestics ever needed a transmission within 30k miles.

"Yeah, none of our domestics ever needed a transmission within 30k miles."

You owned all of the cars they ever made? None of my imports did either, but that doesn't mean that some don't. Your (or my) experience isn't universal.

I tow and absolutely none of my full size domestic pick ups has ever needed a transmission in 30,000 miles ever... A simple solution is to have every manufacturer warranty their vehicles to standard 100,000 miles with proof of oil filter and transmission scheduled changes. I always do mine at the dealership during the warranty periods. Many mfrs have very weak warranty periods and for some unfathomable reason many consumers have the blind faith it will never happen. How about making it a reality? If it's never used (or supposedly never needed) it will not cost a dime to offer it.

Wow, that is a statement from a hardcore Toyota apologist! "Oh, everybody has to replace transmissions within 30,000 miles! What's the big deal?!" These people are missing out.

I agree with the other guy --- the only one of the dozen American cars that my family has ever owned that had a transmission die was a 1999 Pontiac 6000 that had 210,000 miles on it. I also had a '73 Dodge that had been heavily abused, and drove it with a slipping transmission for 30,000 miles, at which time it had about 160,000 miles on it. Had it rebuilt for $500, and it's still going.

Something is wrong with the editing on this site. If I say something using the exact same phrase as someone else but simply change the assertion, their post will get printed, but mine won't. I'm not sure, but I suspect that some of the commentary is coming from editors. When someone was obviously irritated and saying rather incendiary things, I've tried to say that they shouldn't be irritated. His irritation gets posted. My attempt at quelling it won't be. One person asserts that American vehicles are twice as good as imports. I respond that they are half as good. His post is printed, mine isn't. They were equal opposites. It was a good test.

I don't expect this to be printed but, to whomever is reading this, you should consider the possibility that this site's approach to commentary isn't even-handed.

"The 07 Camry goes from 0-60 in 6.5 seconds according to Edmunds (and just about everyone else), not 10 seconds like you incorrectly infer. The 06 was also far quicker than 10 seconds too."

If you had actually read my comment, you would have noted that I said that the Camry was chosen in 2007 because it had finally (IN 2007) built an engine that could do 0-60 in less than 10 seconds. The pre-2007 Camry V-6's took about 10 seconds 0-60 according to most sources, and I know this is about right because my 4-cylinder Grand Am will beat a pre-2007 V-6 Camry by about 10 car-lengths in a typical block. CR lists the 0-60 time for the post-2006 V-6 Camry as 7.5 seconds (provided it can be kept running for 7.5 seconds, which has been a bit of a challenge for many of them).

"Nearly every company replaces transmissions in vehicles before 30,000 miles --- "

Well, DOMESTIC companies DON'T. I have NEVER had a transmission replaced (or even worked on) on any of my numerous domestics, including some that made over a quarter of a million miles. If I EVER had a transmission fail before 30,000 miles I certainly would never buy another car from THAT company, foreign OR domestic.

"The 07 Camry goes from 0-60 in 6.5 seconds according to Edmunds (and just about everyone else), not 10 seconds like you incorrectly infer. The 06 was also far quicker than 10 seconds too."

From what I can figure out doing some web searches and reading forum comments, here is what I think happened. When Toyota decided to make a 268 HP Camry, they decided to focus on fuel economy rather than performance. Before they got some good transmission software worked out, it was time to start selling the cars. You can find on different forums lots of complaints about V6 Camrys having poor acceleration. And there are many complaints from people saying they almost got into accidents in intersections when their Camry unexpectedly would not accelerate as expected. I think the problem is confined to early models of the 268 HP Camrys.

It appears that Toyota eventually did come out with new transmission software and the acceleration improved, but they had to give up some of the fuel economy they had been trying to achieve.

Maybe someone with more direct experience with this on a Camry can comment on it. My interpretation of this may be off because I had a similar problem with a 1998 Taurus. I bought it from my sister-in-law when it was two years old. For the first month I had it, it sometimes had poor acceleration, and unpredictably almost no acceleration in a turn in an intersection. It seemed to happen when I was approaching an intersection at about 20 mph and then tried to accelerate right when I started the turn.

I heard that car had "smart transmission software" that adapted to your driving style. Maybe the problem was that I drove differently than my sister-in-law did? I never figured that out. But the problem was fixed when I brought it back to the dealer and they re-programmed the transmission. The problem never reoccurred over the next 5 years I owned the car before I sold it.

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steven@carsurvey.org

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In reply to 6th Mar 2009, 19:11.

Editing takes place to stop the discussion from boiling over into open warfare. It's a very fine line between making a point forcefully, and being offensive. It's my decision in the end, and I hold my hands up that I don't always get it right. I try very hard to be even handed, but in the end it's up to visitors and members to come to their own judgment.

If you're got concerns about a particular comment, email me the details at the above address. I'm happy to discuss things, and have made changes following such discussions many times.

If people want to have a discussion about the policies of Carsurvey.org, either email me, or post a comment on my blog if you want a public discussion: http://www.distantparts.com/2009/03/07/231/

Steven Jackson, CSDO Media Limited (the company that runs Carsurvey.org)

"You owned all of the cars they ever made? None of my imports did either, but that doesn't mean that some don't. Your (or my) experience isn't universal."

Let's see, all of our domestics have never had any real problems. Probably because we keep them maintained. I do not have to own every vehicle to know domestics make good cars. I never said imports are bad. I am just saying if I did have a car that transmission went out before 30k; I would be very angry.

I stick with Fords. Out of all the cars my family owned, they are most reliable.

My comment sounded like hard core Toyota apologetics and didn't appear to accurately respond to his 0-60 assertion because of editing. I was TRYING to make bald inaccurate statements WITHOUT proof because I think that this style is being embraced on this forum while virtually all independent sources are disparaged as biased... and this simply because some don't agree with the outcome of the research. I inferred as much but had that part of my comment removed... which served to completely rework the meaning of what I said. Instead of saying that this style of assertion is baseless like I was trying to, I ended up appearing to engage in the very thing with which I disagree.

Thanks Steven for your reply. I understand your points.

"Let's see, all of our domestics have never had any real problems. Probably because we keep them maintained. I do not have to own every vehicle to know domestics make good cars. I never said imports are bad. I am just saying if I did have a car that transmission went out before 30k; I would be very angry.

I stick with Fords. Out of all the cars my family owned, they are most reliable"

I also have had no transmission problems with either the 6 domestics or the 6 imports (weird that we would have owned an equal number of each). I usually own them to somewhere near 100,000 miles. Obviously I don't think that domestics are problematic or I wouldn't own them (I own 2 domestics and one import currently). My point, though, is that our experience isn't conclusive.

I agree, domestic companies make some very fine cars. But that doesn't make them ALL good. It's too narrow of a slice of the whole to come to a conclusion like that. Likewise someone thinking that a car that comes from Japan HAS to be good is making the same mistake.

I can, however, completely understand how an owner of 20 trouble-free domestics (or imports) would continue to buy them. After all, they've never been given a reason to change.

A broken tranny prior to 30,000 miles WOULD be a reason to reconsider my purchasing paradigm. I wouldn't stop buying vehicles from an entire region because of it, but I would stop buying that vehicle. I also might stop buying from that company if their service was unsatisfactory.

Speaking of Ford, I really like the new Fusion Hybrid and F150. I also think that the new Mustang will be a hit if gas prices haven't ended that type of buying. I think they sell the most reliable full sized van. The area I think they need to work on is small cars. They haven't been able to produce them at a profit --- in the past. But with the new concessions from labor, they should be able to bring over more of their European cars and do more home-grown development.