Brucelee: You are a wise master, indeed. A Porsche purchase is about as scientific as a survey is accurate. My porsche purchase was purely emotional, although I like to justify the expense of the car to the science of porsche construction:

"It's a very well made car!"


"After reading the brochure/pamplet, I can't understand how anyone would not build a mid-engine car"

P.S. Ugh! I just re-read my earlier post. I am so sorry for the punctuation errors and typos.

Thank you!

And I hope I made it clear that I have NO PROBLEM with this emotional approach to buying a Porsche. Shoot, it IS a great feeling to drop the top and blast off. Nothing scientific about that!

:cheers:

I fully understand that surveys can be, and are, flawed. It's also true that a survey can be intentionally slanted to help obtain the results desired.

It's been said in this thread that JDP intentionally slants its results in order to sale them to the manufacturers. What I can't reconcile is that if this were the case, we'd have multiple manufacturers claiming that their brand/car is #1 in, say, initial quality. After all, JDP would be selling their tweaked results to more than one company, right? A company could request a #1 rating, pay their money, and JDP would provide it.

That doesn't seem to happen. Instead, it seems that JDP conducts the survey, then offers it's result to the manufacturers to use, for a price. The ones that come in #8 instead of #1 don't buy the results.

I suppose one could argue that JDP sells a single tweaked result to the highest bidder. Or that they take money, under the table, from a company in order to pre-determine the outcome. But I'll bet that these activities are indeed illegal, and that finger hasn't been pointed at JDP... yet.

In the end, all the ratings in the world from JDP, CR, etc. and test results from the myriad of car rags are just about meaningless when the heart starts beating, the hands are shaking, and the checkbook is on the table. You're buying it because you want it, not because of some glossy placard on the hood in the showroom. :cheers:

A retort from JD Powers
 

I forwarded this thread to an old friend of mine who's been a researcher/writer at JD Powers for some time. Here's his response.


"Hahahahahahahahaha

"I’d love to know where this guy got his info. Not a lick of fact in it. The big 3 fought JD Power as a brand every chance they got, up until recently. Toyota was the company’s first client around 1968, followed by other Japanese makes. But the American companies didn’t buy any of our studies until the 80s. Even today the Big 3 are very resistant to us, although when they actually win an award from my study they love to advertise it. The import makes are much more receptive generally. Don’t know what this Toyota Corolla thing is, but that’s not a survey we ever did. "

:cheers: