Car Reliability
What is a "predicted reliability rating"?
Reliability ratings have become much more important in the car buying process. As general quality has improved among all manufacturers, reliability is the next Holy Grail that all manufacturers are trying to achieve. Reliability ratings are generated in many different ways, some of them being surveying of people, or actually speaking to the people who are driving that vehicle, and seeing what their reliability record has been. Other groups will take hard data, and using very specific algorithms, identify how likely the vehicle is going to prove to be highly reliable. Reliability data from a surveying entity is sometimes a difficult thing. You don't know where the person's head is when they were filling out the survey; they could be angry at the vehicle for other reasons and therefore they give the reliability rating a bad score.
How are predicted reliability rates determined?
Reliability ratings are difficult to ascertain because sometimes you don't know how the person has used the vehicle. If you are speaking to an owner about how reliable the vehicle has been, potentially they haven't been following the maintenance schedule very closely so the vehicle has been responding accordingly. Reliability ratings are a very imprecise science when you're just talking to owners, because you don't know how they feel about the car in general, and therefore their feelings about the vehicle could be causing some impact or seasoning their results when they are discussing the vehicle's reliability.
How can I find the predicted reliability rating for the vehicle I want?
With car reliability, the two main places for identifying a vehicles reliability rating are firstly consumer reports as their data is based upon survey results. Secondly, Intelichoice.com which uses data and algorithms for identifying a vehicles predicted reliability.
What is a "model review"?
With car reliability, a model review is a published piece of work by a person who's driven the vehicle that you're considering over a key amount of time. A model review is very similar to a movie reviewer in that you're getting that person's opinions on what sort of needs that particular vehicle will meet, what sort of person is probably best tuned to drive the vehicle, whether its a very individual vehicle, or a very a client-side vehicle. The model review will cover things like if it needs more power, less power, the breaks being up to the task and the handling giving a good feeling stability. The model review will also cover whether it's designed well, if you are proud to drive it and what the brand says about the owner. There's a lot of things that go into the model review, it's like a movie reviewer; you can get an insight into what the vehicles going to be like to own.
