ErnestHouse

I am certain if C&D and Consumer reports were asked if their comparisons and testing was biased they would say no. There's no value in a report that everyone has to second guess. The issue is credibility and it's earned or lost with every review that goes to press.

When BMW or its fanboys advertise the accolades of winning the C&D Comparo, there is no asterisk that says "Does not include braking distance." Not that anyone would expect that of course.

idale

If anyone's asked if they're biased, they'll say no. But everyone is, whether we know it or not. We can try and compensate as best we can, but in the end the things that each of us will be impressed or annoyed by will be different, and there's only so much we can do to try and stay objective. And indeed there's little about vehicles that is truly objective, as most boils down to the tradeoffs that each individual would rather make.

Personally I don't think any of these "major" outlets does a good job of objectively reporting on the differences and potential value thereof, but I'm not going to pick up a pitchfork and torch. Anyone who blindly follows a number result of a review is an idiot (or truly doesn't care about anything, in which case why bother with reviews at all, just pick whatever's cheapest or comes in blue or whatever). Figure out what you care about, and read between the lines in reviews for information on those things.

If this style of review sells more copies of C&D (or MT or R&T or whatever), then it's their call, just like it's every reader's call whether to support these outlets with subscriptions or online ad revenue or whatever.

ErnestHouse

The C&D comparo was badly done. Badly done comparos need to be called out on it by those who know better. Audiworld is as good a community to do so and comes up early in the Google search results for "car and driver q5 x3 evoque comparo".

Q5 Bob

We Audi fans can brag about shorter stopping distance and overall Vehicle rating. Here is what C&D said about the X3's braking. Not really trying to hide anything IMO:

"The BMW’s only real dynamic failing is in the braking department. It took 180 feet to stop from 70 mph, 11 feet longer than the Q5 and 15 longer than the Evoque. It’s another example of BMW’s recent poor braking performances. The pedal feels fine. In fact, it won the brake-feel category, and its discs are bigger, front and rear, than either of the others’. But the vehicle simply doesn’t deliver stops as short as its competitors do. We have to believe that the poor numbers are due to the Goodyear Eagle LS2 mud-and-snow-rated, run-flat tires."

lmariorod

We've owned our '10 Q5 longer than a lot of others on this forum, in fact we got ours months after it's release. Our build date is 07/2009. At that time the Q5 3.2 V6 won a similar comparison by C&D against the "09 BMW X3, "10 MB GLK-350, "10 Volvo XC-60 and the big Kahuna Lexus RX-350.

This current comparison is with the 2.0T and that's why the Lexus, Volvo and Mercedes were probably not included.

We're all somewhat biased here towards the Audi but kudos to BMW for stepping up their game with the X3. I'd rather push my Audi than drive a bimmer but that's just me. In the long run, we all benefit when Audi, BMW, Mercedes and Lexus continue to improve their models in order to stay competitive.

ErnestHouse

Braking distance wasn't part of the calculation to determine their "Winner". Only brake feel which is subjective. BMW shipped the vehicle with those tires and that's what people are going to go driving with.

HotRodW

I can understand why Audi forum members would be disappointed that the Q5 didn't win, but I think some are a little too defensive about the whole thing. Unless you had a hand in designing the Q5, I see no reason to take offense at losing a comparison test. We each had a reason to purchase the Q5 instead of something else, and that's all that really matters. What difference does it make if some people prefer the X3?

Q5 Bob

Correct. So if someone is shopping for a new vehicle and read the article, if brake pedal feel is a priority they could do more research. On the other hand, if stopping distance was a higher priority they'd see the numbers snd could research further. No?

ErnestHouse

This thread is about the C&D article. It's been criticised. There's no offense involved. A Winning score of a credible comparo would have taken the stopping distance into the calculation not subjective feel. Thus it was a bad bit of journalism. Especially with the word "Driver" in the magazine name. Justify it all you want.