The G Man

According to the Consumer Reports Annual Car Reliability Survey 2010, the Audi A6 V6 is the most reliable Audi in the line up. The worst is the Q7.

jazznuts699

is predicted reliability based on past reliability data... or something else... i dont quite get how for example mercury is #10 while ford is #16 and lincoln is #20...they generally use the same parts.... with some trim differences...

on another note being 24th out of 33... that's not really something to jump up and down about... but thats just me hehe ~ i still luv my audi

ex_boxster

Unlike Ford, Mercury doesn't have any trucks or large SUV's in their lineup. Those are typically the worst in reliability, so that would create the disparity.

Not sure why the Lincolns are scoring low, except for the Navigator and they may be trying to put too many bells and whistles on their lineup. That's part of what is killing Audi... complex things break more often.

jazznuts699

true true

am_ver

+1; I hate the EPB

The G Man

Keep in mind, this is consumer report we are talking about. They are good at recommanding toaster ovens, but not cars

ex_boxster

Then why'd you post it?

Seriously, I wouldn't look to CR for performance car recommendation, but for reliability ratings and real-world impressions, they are better than most. After all, the car rags all rely on advertising money to stay alive, and their test vehicles are almost always hand picked and provided by the manufacturer. Are they going to bite the hand that feeds them? Not likely.

At least CR buys real cars off the lot (not ringers), and they don't take advertisements. If something is crap, they'll tell you it's crap... it won't cost them a dime to do so. Their reliability ratings come from real people that actually own the cars. It's a good resource.

Here's a good article:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortu...2886/index.htm

The G Man

And that is the biggest problem with CR, some sample size are too small. CR is suppose to have a minimum of 100 data sample before they consider the data valid. For the 2009 survey, I believe 1.3 million CR subscriber respond to their survey, yet some sample size were in the hundreds and some are in the tens of thousands. My problem with this type of method is that the weight of each survey is not equal, meaning one person who have a negative option of a low sample model car can change the final result much more than a person who is evaluating a car with a massive sample weight. This year CR actually broke their own rules by using sample rate below 100 for 3 of Ford's model.

ex_boxster

While I agree that the variation in sample sizes isn't ideal, it not as much of a problem as you indicate. The reliability ratings don't come from someone saying "I don't really like the brakes", they come from people checking a box that indicates the brakes have required service on some particular model car. While someone can lie about problems and skew the results, that can happen in both directions, good and bad.

If Brand X's sedan has really bad brakes so that about 25% of them experience brake failure in the first year, a sample size of 100 should have about 25 failure reports, just like a sample size of 1000 should have around 250 bad reports. Will the larger sample be more accurate? Of course. But that doesn't mean the smaller sample is insignificant, it's just not as accurate. And since the data is represented in ranges of quality over years of time it does show trends, which is the real strength of the ratings IMO.

In the end, cars are usually an emotional choice, not a practical one. If not, we'd all be driving Accords, huh?

mystrodo

The key word *Predicted* IMO, the 3.2 and 4.2 and now the 3.0 (3.2 that's been beefed for the supercharger) if you took away the issues beginner users have and complain about such as understanding the complexity of the car, they are always taking them in because they can'l figure out how to pair their phones or how to use the MMI or one day while I was in how to open the glove box etc etc..I'd rate the machanicals of the C6 as one of the most reliable when serviced properly.

The perfect car will be the car you never have to learn anything about.