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About us
April 2004
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The real deal

Consumers Union President Jim Guest.

IT'S ABOUT YOU
CR reliability data are based on subscribers' annual-survey responses concerning 675,000 vehicles.

A friend’s son rushed into his kitchen one day. “Mom!” he said, “There are millions of cats in the yard!” “Millions?” his mother asked. “Well, thousands.” “Thousands?” she asked. “Umm, hundreds.” “Hundreds?” “OK, ours and a gray one,” he finally said.

Kind of a "big hat, no cattle" situation: The numbers sound impressive, but the reality behind them may be much less so.

It’s a lot like auto information. The amount of data available to car buyers through Web sites and publications has exploded. While we recommend that consumers gather as much as they can, a lot of the testing, reliability, and safety intelligence out there lacks the credibility and depth you’ll find in Consumer Reports. This is the only major auto-testing publication that doesn’t accept advertising or freebies. We don’t borrow the vehicles that we rate. We buy them, and we buy them anonymously.

Consumer Reports has been covering autos for 68 years. We drive each vehicle for several months and 6,000 to 8,000 miles. We test performance, fuel economy, safety, comfort, and convenience. We measure trunk space with suitcases, so we can tell you what will really fit inside. We measure reach, width, and illumination patterns of headlights, but we consult moon charts first. How else would we determine which are the darkest, most scientifically appropriate nights for headlight testing?

By the time a vehicle earns our “Recommended” check mark, we’ve track- tested it and road-tested it. We’ve analyzed its reliability and factored in
accident-avoidance performance and crash- and rollover-test results, if the vehicle has been crash-tested by the government or the insurance industry. Unlike one competitor, which sells its seal of approval to automakers for use in their advertising, we do not put our “Recommended” check up for sale.

Interested in how a particular new or used car will hold up over the years? Our latest Annual Questionnaire drew responses for 675,000 subscriber-owned vehicles covering 14 trouble spots over eight model years. The reliability data we present are broader than anything else available and come from the deepest pool of actual consumer experience.

To make it easier for you to research vehicles, we’ve redesigned the autos section of both Consumer Reports magazine and this Web site. Much of the safety information on our site (see our Autos section), including measurements of blind spots in recently tested vehicles, is available free. We charge for some information, such as the New Car Buying Kit, but we think our unbiased data are worth it; you pay another kind of price when you get information from Web sites supported financially by the very manufacturers whose vehicles you are researching.

We hear it all the time: This or that publication is “the Consumer Reports” of its industry. Well, here’s the bottom line when it comes to cars: We are the Consumer Reports of automotive information.
Jim Guest's signature.

Jim Guest
President
Also, in February: Consumer Reports Money Adviser, a newsletter for consumers wanting in-depth coverage of personal finance. Like all of our publications, it accepts no advertising and serves only one interest--yours.