3rd Aug 2010, 10:27

J.D. powers can be misleading. J.D. Powers rates "initial quality". That's 12 months. For lasting quality you may want to look at "Consumer Reports" used car issues.

3rd Aug 2010, 11:52

"So much for the J.D. Powers highest rating huh??"

Personally I don't trust any of the ratings for new vehicles today. I find it rather odd that the Big 3 are all of sudden rated so highly right after almost going belly up.

3rd Aug 2010, 19:24

My thoughts exactly! Guess we know where some of our tax money went huh... ;)

4th Aug 2010, 14:37

With their backs to the wall, they had no choice but build the best cars possible.

4th Aug 2010, 15:17

"With their backs to the wall, they had no choice but build the best cars possible."

Even if this were true, which I doubt it is, would you want to buy cars from a company that was forced to make them good, rather than a company that has always made good cars?

I really believe the timing of the high ratings and the failure of the car industry in the U.S. is something to be wary of.

4th Aug 2010, 17:17

"With their backs to the wall, they had no choice but build the best cars possible."

True, and remember, it is Toyota that is spending the equivalent of a Camry every 33 minutes on damage control and ad hype, after building the world's most recalled cars in history over the past two decades.

5th Aug 2010, 02:08

'Initial quality' as measured by people like J.D. Powers and Consumer Reports has very little relevance to how reliable a car will be in the long haul, over a decade or two.

Generally raters and reviewers tend to favor foreign cars, while long term users break much more evenly.

5th Aug 2010, 19:11

Well, I don't know what some of you folks are doing with or to your cars, but I am on my sixth Ford product and all of them have been superb. I have owned Toyota, VW, Mercedes, Porsche, GM, Chrysler and Nissan and none of them were better value than my Fords. (Yes, I am 60+ and a high mileage driver for 45 years.)

My current Ford is a 2005 Freestyle that I bought as a demo with 2200 miles on it. It now has 111,678 miles on it and I have not replaced so much as a light bulb! Regular maintenance by a good shop is all that is required, along with reasonable driving habits.

6th Aug 2010, 10:32

J.D. powers does the "initial quality" rating. It doesn't matter much to me because I am a used car buyer and hold my cars for a long time.

Consumer Reports, in particular the used car edition, does the long term quality rating.

Consumer Reports also gives an "expected reliability" rating for new cars if there is a history of the same model.

I try to keep these 3 things separated and use them to gauge the value in a used car deal. An average ranking vehicle in Consumer Reports with an above average depreciation can make an excellent value for the used car buyer.

6th Aug 2010, 13:56

The 3.0L Automatic line up that Ford has in their cars are bad. Fusion, Edge, Mazda6, etc. Ford isn't to be blamed as this transmission was manufactured by Aisin. I suggest you look it up. Ford didn't design the unit or build it. BMW from 1999-2003 Automatics suffered the same fate. It sucks because it's was meant to be a cost saving method by Ford/BMW; it did save them money, but it costs the customer out of pocket because the extended warranty everyone bought for an extra 2000, doesn't cover it fully, if not at all.

6th Aug 2010, 16:05

Ohhhhh, so ALL of the problems with Toyota that were from American manufactured third party parts are not their fault either right?

I love domestic lovers and how they justify things. "Well it isn't Fords fault, they didn't design or build the transmission." Well guess what... They chose to use the transmission and therefore it is entirely their fault the cars are starting to be junk in that area. Everyone bashes Toyota for faulty parts, but when an American car company has the same type of issue, it isn't their fault.

No wonder American cars continue to be sub par. Why build it good when it won't be your fault when it goes bad?

7th Aug 2010, 12:13

American cars have not been "sub par" in some time. The latest IQS (Initial Quality Survey) ranks Ford ahead of both Honda and Toyota. Both GM and Ford have more cars in the top three in every category of J. D. Powers quality rankings than ANY Japanese company. Out of 33 car makers Ford ranks 5th (ahead of Honda) and Toyota ranks a rather pathetic 21st.

The Fusion has ALWAYS been rated higher in reliability than Camry or Accord. I don't know where this "American cars are sub par" myth keeps coming from.

7th Aug 2010, 18:54

"Ohhhhh, so ALL of the problems with Toyota that were from American manufactured third party parts are not their fault either right?"

Actually, one of the latest Toyota problems dates back two decades and involves defective parts on Japanese-built Toyotas built by Japanese workers using (defective) Japanese parts. Us stupid Americans can't be blamed for that mess.

8th Aug 2010, 10:21

I find it hard to believe that these parts are actually defective. After 20 years (and most likely hundreds of thousands of miles. We are talking about Toyota here, and it's not uncommon to see Toyota's with well over 300,000 miles on them). Parts wear out on any car. Not to mention that now that Toyota has been embarrassed with a lot of major recalls they're going to start being more careful. These recalls are the best thing that's ever happened to Toyota, because now they have to win back customers, and to do that they're going to have to start making the automotive gold they once did.

9th Aug 2010, 22:54

This wasn't WEAR. It was part FAILURE. The metal rods are made of such poor quality steel that they simply snap. Our company uses Ford trucks and they routinely go 300,000 miles with no problems... including the steering rods breaking and killing our drivers. Many Ford trucks easily make 500,000 miles without major components breaking. That's why 99% of all companies use Ford, GM and Dodge trucks. I've seen several used Ford Rangers advertised with well over 300,000 miles on them.

9th Aug 2010, 22:56

I wrote this comment.

6th Aug 2010, 13:56.

I wasn't trying to pick on Toyota, hell I didn't even mention Toyota. There's a common fault with the hardware which needs to be recalled. Whether it's domestic or import manufacturers, consumers buy warranties expecting protection and coverage whenever an untimely breakdown occurs. There shouldn't be any hesitation from the dealer at all.

9th Aug 2010, 23:15

"These recalls are the best thing that's ever happened to Toyota"

Gee, isn't this cute? When domestics have recalls it means they are poorly built crap. When Toyota has the biggest recalls in the history of the wheel, it's the "best thing that's ever happened". Wow. Talk about strange reasoning!!

10th Aug 2010, 19:29

No, it's just good reasoning. Toyota is a smart company. In order to win back their customers, they are going to need to step it up. Once again we'll be seeing the excellent vehicles Toyota once built. Even I'll admit they've let the quality slip a bit. Now when it comes time to replace my Corolla (a '96 with 182,000 completely flawless miles) I can replace it with something just as good or better. My Corolla is a hundred times better than the cars Toyota was building for most of the early 2000's.

By the way, the "biggest recalls in the history of the wheel" still belongs to Ford, as they have an ONGOING recall of over 16 MILLION vehicles.

11th Aug 2010, 07:15

As long as they have a 100000 mile warranty, that's where I am buying new cars.

11th Aug 2010, 11:05

"As long as they have a 100000 mile warranty, that's where I am buying new cars."

I've never had to use the warranty on any domestic, as I've never had any problems with them.

11th Aug 2010, 21:57

I agree. That's why no more new Hondas for us.

12th Aug 2010, 21:55

"I agree. That's why no more new Hondas for us."

My Honda came with a Lifetime Warranty.

14th Aug 2010, 13:11

"My Honda came with a Lifetime Warranty"

Great. Now try to get Honda to HONOR that warranty. We've had experience with Honda. NEVER again!! And I just read that they recalled ANOTHER half-million cars for dangerous safety issues.

28th Nov 2012, 14:14

I totally agree that most dealers and mechanics exploit car owners with regard to virtually everything. The computers on all three of our vehicles, including our 2006 Fusion, have performed flawlessly. As my fellow mechanic has stated, computers seldom fail without some outside influence. Our local Ford dealership is so unscrupulous that I wouldn't take my car to them if they serviced it for free. I drove 20 miles to another dealership to get it serviced under warranty. Once the warranty is out on my cars, I do all my own servicing.

Most of the complaints I see on here reek of dishonesty on the part of service facilities. The most blatant example is the poor (and gullible) Chevy Trailblazer owner who was told that all four of his rotors and calipers just happened to go bad at the same time, which is virtually impossible.