Orval Fairbairn wrote:

It was on the top of the list for "sales satisfaction," never for
reliability. Despite all the hype, the S series did suffer from some
widespread problems, including problems with brake rotors, oil burning,
and cracked heads.

They had to "integrate" it into GM because there was no way that a
company building only 200K of a model a year could survive and fund new
vehicle development. You need the critical mass of several million units
per year to make any money designing, tooling, manufacturing, marketing,
and selling mass-market, low priced vehicles.

"Doug Miller" <spambait (AT) milmac (DOT) com> wrote

I can't recall Mitsu actually selling any of thier branded models here that
early. I thought they didn't sell under thier own name in the US until the
late '80's...I know they entered a agreement with an American company to
sell thier cars re-badged. The Dodge Colt and Plymouth Champ were
identical, except the Champ (of which we had) had a lot nicer interior,
rims, etc, etc. Was Dodge and Plymouth part of Chrysler at that time or was
AMC/Jeep/Eagle aquired yet? I get confused as to what was the top
company....

Doug Miller wrote:
What you don't understand is that the reliability ratings in Consumer
Reports come from their subscribers that fill out surveys, it's not CR's
opinion except when they're projecting reliability on new models based
on similarity with key components of earlier models.

There have been several times when essentially the same vehicle,
marketed by different companies, have had different reliability ratings,
and they'll note that anomaly in their survey results. It's easy to
understand that a typical Mitsubishi buyer may be very different from a
typical Dodge buyer when it comes to how well they maintain the car.

CR has often rated U.S. made vehicles very highly, and has often rated
imported vehicles poorly.

In article <LoWpl.13302$W06.12809 (AT) flpi148 (DOT) ffdc.sbc.com>, SMS <scharf.steven (AT) geemail (DOT) com> wrote:
CR's surveys are entirely self-selected, which right off the bat makes them
completely invalid from a scientific standpoint.

They note that *now*. They didn't used to, not until after they got caught
with their pants down on the Colt and a few others.

Or how they respond to surveys.
"Often" is not the correct spelling of "sometimes".

Doug Miller wrote:

No, it simply makes them not double-blind surveys. Unless you think that
a Saturn driver is more likely to complain about defects than a Toyota
driver, the surveys are valid even though they're not double-blind. In
fact you could argue that a Toyota owner would have higher expectations
than a GM owner and be _more_ likely to complain about problems.

Because often is the proper word to describe the reality.

It's easy to understand why some people get mad at the CR surveys and
attempt to dismiss them simply because they are not the "perfect" survey
where they would call 100,000 people at random and ask them all the
questions in the survey, but it doesn't make their survey "completely
invalid."

And of course other publications and organizations reach largely the
same conclusions with their own surveys, i.e. J.D. Power. It's not like
CR is telling anyone anything that numerous other organizations haven't
confirmed to be true.

In article <Gy%pl.21308$Ws1.12020 (AT) nlpi064 (DOT) nbdc.sbc.com>, SMS <scharf.steven (AT) geemail (DOT) com> wrote:
Sorry, that's not correct. Self-selected surveys are scientifically invalid.
Period.
You go on believing that if it makes you feel better.
No, many people dismiss CR's surveys because they bear much less relationship
to reality than CR likes to pretend they do.

No, what makes the surveys completely invalid from a statistical standpoint is
the self-selected sampling. That isn't statistically valid. Period.
Actually, it is like that. JD Power consistently ranks American cars much
higher than CR does -- like I said, CR's bias against American-made cars has
been obvious and widely known for decades. Your unwillingness, or inability,
to recognize that does not change it.

Doug Miller wrote:

You just go on believing that if it makes you happy. But it's not
reality, it's sour grapes.