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THE GOODS : Mixed Reviews for Consumer Car ‘Bible’

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

It’s spring, time for high school proms, fertilizing the garden and the annual auto issue of Consumer Reports--the source of information used most by American car buyers.

Each year, Consumer Reports, published by the nonprofit Consumers Union, assembles about 300 pages of information on the dimensions, prices, performance and features of almost every model sold in North America.

The annual issue is famous for its “Frequency of Repair” rankings of automobile reliability. It surveys subscribers about their problems with their cars and presents the results in charts with colored dots for each mechanical system. A red dot is very good and a black dot is a failing grade.

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If 2% of the survey respondents report problems with a Ford Taurus engine, for example, the car gets a red dot; a few more complaints, half a red dot--through gradations to cars with problems reported by more than 14.8%, which get black dots.

But how reliable is the Consumer Reports evaluation of auto reliability? Most automobile experts say the magazine deserves a lot of respect for the annual car issue but fault the “Frequency of Repair” rating.

J.D. Power & Associates and Intellichoice issue their own automobile evaluations that differ significantly from Consumer Reports, both in methodology and results.

The Complete Car Cost Guide, published by Intellichoice, estimates the annual cost of repairs based on data it obtains from insurance firms that sell service contracts to consumers. These service contracts are based on analyses of each model’s mechanical problems, says Steve Gross, marketing manager at Intellichoice.

J.D. Power publishes reliability and quality indexes based on random surveys of a minimum of 500 owners of each model, says John Ready, editor of the reports. The surveys are sold to car manufacturers, although the firm issues abbreviated public releases of its findings.

“Consumer Reports is not as accurate from a research standpoint as ours,” Ready says. “There seems to be a definite bias in their results.”

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Rana Arons of Consumer Reports says the publication has never asserted that its “Frequency of Repair” indexes are scientifically based or free from bias, but instead that they represent the views of a very large number of motorists.

The index is based on a voluntary survey of the magazine’s 5 million subscribers, who receive survey forms in the mail. Fewer than 10% fill in the forms, a response rate at the low end of what survey experts consider adequate to assure statistical reliability.

Because the survey is based only on subscribers to the magazine, it might reflect the bias of those individuals. Arons says the publication declines to discuss the demographics of its readers, except to acknowledge that they are better educated and have higher incomes than average Americans.

Aside from possible bias, critics of the “Frequency of Repair” charts fault the magazine’s ratings on two points.

Experts say it isn’t clear that the margins of 2% to 14.8% are valid determinants of good and bad performance. And the Consumer Reports surveys make little distinction between a motorist who has a relatively minor repair and one who has a serious problem.

Joel Pitcoff, manager for research and analysis at Ford Motor Co., says Consumer Reports survey findings often conflict with Ford’s surveys. Pitcoff also questions the magazine’s results because identical cars marketed under different names are often ranked differently in its charts.

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“We know Consumer Reports is very influential,” he says, “but there are a lot of unexplained things in their data.”

Despite their criticism, Pitcoff and others say the magazine deserves credit for helping inform car buyers.

“It is pretty accurate,” a Honda spokesman says. “But the consumer needs to use it as only one of a series of tools in buying a car.”

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