Automotive Forums

Oy vey!

"An "ideal" is defined as an excellent or perfect example. In the first Ideal Vehicle Awards, announced today by automotive research and consulting firm AutoPacific, owners rate their new 2006 model year cars and trucks by how closely they come to their ideal. The cars or trucks that owners would change the least are the most ideal.

Those carmakers that best understand their customers and create the vehicle their core buyer group desires have come closest to the ideal.

The top-rated vehicle and top-rated car is the Mercury Montego in the Large Car/Luxury Car category. In fact, Ford Motor Company sweeps the first three positions overall with the Ford Crown Victoria and Ford Five Hundred in second and third place. The top-rated truck is the Honda Odyssey Minivan.

The top-rated brand overall is Hyundai out-pointing Mercury and Lincoln for the most ideal vehicle honors.

Ford Motor Company and American Honda have three segment winners apiece. BMW and Hyundai have two each."

Full winners can be found here:
http://www.automotive.com/features/90/auto-news/21207/index.html

What next? Cars most ideal to carry pets? Make out? Paris Hilton(tm) is likely to crash?  

"This results from calculating owner input across 11 specific areas related to a vehicle's exterior size, passenger roominess, cargo space, driver's seat comfort, drivers seat visibility, interior technology, power, ease of getting in and out, interior storage compartments and tires and wheels."

OK, let me see if I have this straight they asked ordinary people there opinions on 11 variables, some that are quatitative some that are qualitative. They then smashed these results all togehter and cam up with a "scientific" result. What constitutes the averages opinion of interior technology, how many blinky lights the car has? They rated tires and wheels, take 100 people and put them in a room, 2 of them will have a very basic understanding of tire performance. Not to mention 99 of them won't like their cars wheels because they aren't sparkley enough. They asked for peoples' opinion on power, interior size, cargo space and exterior size. These are all represented rather well by actual data. You can really compare these things, but I guess that would have required some math.

What really makes me angry is that people will actually pay attention to a "study" like this. It makes me angrier to think that someone got paid to do it.  

aquabat911:
"This results from calculating owner input across 11 specific areas related to a vehicle's exterior size, passenger roominess, cargo space, driver's seat comfort, drivers seat visibility, interior technology, power, ease of getting in and out, interior storage compartments and tires and wheels."

OK, let me see if I have this straight they asked ordinary people there opinions on 11 variables, some that are quatitative some that are qualitative. They then smashed these results all togehter and cam up with a "scientific" result. What constitutes the averages opinion of interior technology, how many blinky lights the car has? They rated tires and wheels, take 100 people and put them in a room, 2 of them will have a very basic understanding of tire performance. Not to mention 99 of them won't like their cars wheels because they aren't sparkley enough. They asked for peoples' opinion on power, interior size, cargo space and exterior size. These are all represented rather well by actual data. You can really compare these things, but I guess that would have required some math.

What really makes me angry is that people will actually pay attention to a "study" like this. It makes me angrier to think that someone got paid to do it.

I feel the same way and covered it here:

http://www.thecarblog.com/rants/car_awards_more_meaningless_than_ever.php