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(Gould 0738) wrote in message ...
But the Chevy Nova was sold and serviced by a dealer network that was
part of the equation for the reliability rating (actually a projection
based on repair history) of all Chevy products.

Your point assumes that all or most Toyota shops are superior to all or most
Chevrolet shops. The Toyota product has traditionally been superior, but can we
automatically extend that perception to the repair shops?

Maybe we can, maybe we can't. Some manufacturers take stonger stances
than others, regarding the entities that represent them to the
customer. We might presume that a manufacturer who is finicky about
its product would be similarly finicky about its dealerships and
service shops, and that the other manufacturer with a history of lower
standards for its product would have a similar program of quality
control for its shops. One of the principles in the "lemon law"
involves the car being returned to the dealer to fix the same problem
over and over. I'm going to go out on a limb and postulate that this
was not a problem with Toyota, either its products or its repair
facilities.

Maybe my points are inconsequential or can be proven downright false
in this instance. I'm just saying that the discussion of the Nova and
Corolla doesn't end with the statement that they were manufactured to
be esentially identical, because the life of the product is only
beginning at time of manufacture.

Another thing to take into account is the end users themselves. Toyota
buyers are not necessarily the same people as Chevy buyers, or the
need for the two product lines would not exist. As a side example,
while I consider Toyota and Honda to be parity products in terms of
quality and reliability, I've noticed that Toyota owners were more
extroverted about their choice in transportation. For a while it
seemed the ad agencies noticed the difference as well: Honda ads just
showed the car, Toyota ads actually tried to sell the car. But I
digress.

So maybe Chevy owners don't take as good care of their cars, maybe
they tend to take the car to independent shops that may not be as
aware of the latest service procedures as the dealer-run shops (though
the reverse can be true). The main point comes back to: there are a
host of factors to consider beyond the assembly line that the car
rolled off of. My thinking is that Consumer Reports was not blind to
those factors in predicting different reliability for two seemingly
identical products.

Consumer Reports' reliability data are used by two types of car
buyers. For the new car buyer, you can look at a track record of the
model and make a prediction about how your experience will be. This is
limited by the tendency of models to undergo periodic revisions that
may invalidate the prediction. For the used car buyer, the data is
quite applicable, because you can see that people who own that same
model have already experienced certain problems which makes your
liklihood of experiencing the same thing higher, if you buy that
model.

For either type of buyer, some savvy can help. If you know that two
models share an identical system, look to see if the statistical
reliability of that system has proven to be different for the two
models. Then ask why the difference. Is there something different
about the products in toto, that causes them to be used or maintained
differently? Or perhaps more importantly, is there anything I can do
to see the higher reliability, like emulating the methods of those
who've achieved it?

%mod%

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