Toyota sedang mengalami ujian berat - PART 01

[maskopat]

ibarat tentara yang sedang perang, sedang kehabisan pelor... sama2 capek.. jadinya cuman ledek2an di balik pohon doang...
harus ada yang supply amunisi neh...

[sentrakantor]

Jujur ya gw ngk terlalu suka toyota soalnya ngk punya mobil toyota, aku lebih suka Honda Soalnya Iritttttttt , http://www.sentrakantor.com/

[asudarsono]

Nimbrung lagi ah, biar rame.

Suka Honda karena punya Honda. Irit.
Gue juga suka Toyota krn dipinjemin Toyota. Rental termasuk bensin. Irit juga khan
Gue juga suka Nissan krn mobil kantor Nissan. Bensin pake kupon. Irit.
Paling demen sih Mitsubishi. Bandel, muatnya juga banyak. Profit.

Boleh khaaaan.

[jalu]

sekarang lagi trend suka karena hemat yah.....

suka honda karena konsumsi bensinnya irit, hemat bbm
suka suzuki karena harganya murah, hemat uang saat membelinya
suka toyota karena resale valuenya bagus, hemat depresiasi harganya
suka mitsubishi karena daya angkutnya besar, hemat ongkos kirim
suka daihatsu karena spare part murah, hemat biaya perbaikan
suka mazda karena bodynya keren, hemat biaya modifikasi
suka subaru karena larinya kenceng, hemat waktu

hemat kan.....

[Prive]

kalo suka andong boleh nggak, kendaraan tradisional asli indonesia

[asudarsono]

Wakakakak ..... gue baca sampai ketawa.

[DOHC]

ikutan jg dehh.....

suka isuzu karena mobil nya irit perawatan... walaupun ga irit2 banget FCnya....
suka nissan karena mobilnya irit bensin.... walaupun tenaga nya payah...
suka honda karena model nya irit alias ga dikekang jaman.... walaupun skrg mahal banget
suka toyota karena terbukti bandel, kaga usa sering servis gede.... walaupun boros banget...


busettt... tiap merek ternyata ada plus minus nya...

[Abu2]

terungkap apanya wan....

tersingkap Doch....

[DOHC]

hoo....

[Abu2]

kalo suka andong boleh nggak, kendaraan tradisional asli indonesia

mirip mirip, kalo ane suka odong odong......

[artoodetoo]

Jadi sudah game over nih?

[DOHC]

utk sementara draw dulu kali...

[toyotaman]

http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNew ... 12004.html


Apr 8, 2010
Toyota probed over parts


SHANGHAI - AUTHORITIES in eastern China have launched an investigation into Japanese giant Toyota Motor Corp over the alleged sale of uncertified auto parts, state-run media reported.


An inspection of two Toyota dealership storehouses in Zhejiang province found more than 1,700 auto parts lacked the required certification and inspection reports, Xinhua news agency said late on Wednesday.


Pan Wei, an official with the Zhejiang Provincial Administration for Industry and Commerce, was quoted as saying companies in China were not allowed to sell goods without the certification.


The two storehouses are run by FAW Toyota Motor Sales Co, a join venture between China's FAW Group and Toyota while the spare parts were supplied by Toyota Motor Warehousing and Trading Co, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Toyota. Officials at Toyota China and FAW Toyota Motor Sales were not immediately available for comment, while Shanghai-based Toyota Motor Warehousing and Trading declined to comment when contacted by AFP.


Earlier this year, Toyota recalled more than 75,000 RAV4 sport utility vehicles made in China due to faulty accelerator pedals, part of a global recall of more than eight million vehicles. The trade and commerce administration in Zhejiang said Toyota paid compensation of 200-300 yuan (S$40 - S$60) to each driver of the RAV4 model recalled in the province.


The agency called it the first such compensation offered in China, where auto sales surged past those in the United States in 2009 to make it the world's biggest car market. -- AFP

[toyotaman]

http://www.latimes.com/classified/autom ... ory?page=1

Toyota response to complaints takes on a confrontational tone
Special teams are sent to investigate, and sometimes discredit, reported problems.


When its customers claim their Toyota or Lexus vehicles suddenly accelerate, the company is at the ready with teams of technicians that it can deploy rapidly to examine the reports -- and in some cases discredit them.


The teams, dubbed SMART for "swift market analysis and research team," were publicly unveiled by Toyota on Thursday, but have been deployed at least seven times in the last month.


They scored big successes when they helped undermine a recent claim by a San Diego motorist who said his Prius took him on a 20-minute high-speed ride down the freeway and another by a New York housekeeper who said her Prius flew into a wall even though her foot was on the brake.


Toyota's critics say it has every right to dispute inaccurate claims, and its legions of devoted customers have cheered the rigorous response on Internet forums.


The SMART teams are part of a much broader public relations and legal strategy Toyota is using to confront critics, an approach that has toughened in recent weeks. Toyota is now staking out its position before major scientific investigations into sudden acceleration have gotten started, and before federal officials have completed regulatory reviews. Last week, federal safety regulators enlisted the government's top technical experts to examine the problem.


Critics say the company is acting prematurely and in some cases spreading misinformation.


"It is a very aggressive and misleading campaign," said Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety. "Toyota can't win this battle by slinging mud, but they are trying."


In at least one case, a SMART inspection backfired, adding ammunition to a lawsuit against the company. The team discovered that a repair under the recall campaign for sticking accelerator pedals had not been properly completed.


Toyota's strategy represents a big change in the last six weeks. In February, Toyota Chief Executive Akio Toyoda told Congress, "As the CEO of the company, I will make sure that we will never ever blame the customers going forward."


Exactly what that meant is not quite clear, because the company said it now intends to dispute the reports of its customers when it sees something questionable.


"When we see something that needs addressing, we're going to respond," company spokesman Mike Michels said. In some cases, customers have claimed sudden acceleration for mechanical behavior that involves "normal functions of a vehicle," Michels said.


He added, "We're getting a lot of stuff coming out of the woodwork."


Auto safety experts said Toyota has every right to defend itself against phony claims, but its approach has led to countercharges that the company is spreading outright falsehoods.


Ditlow is furious over an e-mail Toyota sent to some reporters, a copy of which he provided to The Times, alleging that he was on the payroll of plaintiff attorneys. Ditlow said that neither he nor his organization takes money from lawyers. Ditlow said his funding comes from nonprofit foundations, auto insurers, consumers and its publications.


Congressional investigators, meanwhile, complain that Toyota has sent multiple teams of lobbyists after them to sow discord among committee staffers. Toyota lobbyists are trying to disrupt the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's investigation, a staffer on the committee said.

Toyota has also taken on several congressional witnesses.

David Gilbert, a professor of automotive technology at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in February that his experiments showed potential flaws in Toyota's electronic engine control system.


Two Toyota employees resigned from a board of advisors for Gilbert's academic department.


Toyota then hired testing firm Exponent Inc., which helped the automaker put together a demonstration for the media at Toyota's U.S. sales headquarters in Torrance countering Gilbert's results point by point.


"It is unfortunate they felt the need to do that," Gilbert said. "I didn't expect Toyota would like what I found, but I was surprised by the magnitude of the response. What were they trying to prove, that they could squash me like a bug? Well, I suppose they could."


The attack on Gilbert has worried other academic experts that they could be the next target if they are critical of the company.


"Most of the academics completely support Gilbert," said Michael Pecht, director of an electronics reliability lab at the University of Maryland who has studied sudden acceleration for 10 years. "I think that there is a fear in the Toyota Exponent tactics."


Sean Kane, president of the consulting firm Safety Research and Strategies, has been another Toyota critic who the company has characterized as an operative of law firms.


Kane claims Toyota backed an online consumer poll that attempted to discredit him. The poll, a copy of which was provided by Kane, asks a series of questions about Kane, Gilbert and allegedly inaccurate reporting by ABC News.


Embedded in one question, for example, was the statement, "The American people deserve the truth about the safety of their cars, not biased studies by trial lawyer consultants who stand to make millions suing Toyota."


"We do opinion surveys all the time," Toyota spokesman Mike Michels said. "We were researching the potential for getting messages out, in particular for our advertising."

Meanwhile, the SMART inspections have yielded mixed results.


On March 15, the company drew dozens of reporters to an event at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego where it was able to cast doubt on claims by James Sikes that his 2008 Prius had suddenly accelerated a week earlier.


The company asserted that the accelerator pedal was working properly and the brake pedal had been repeatedly depressed, implying Sikes did it intentionally to mimic a sudden acceleration event.


Released several days later, the California Highway Patrol report about the incident said nothing about suspected fraud and noted simply that the brakes were burned out. It said Sikes was examined afterward by emergency medical personnel and found to have a "very high" blood pressure and heart rate.


SMART did another inspection last month in Harrison, N.Y., after a woman reported that the Prius she was driving suddenly accelerated into a wall. An inspection of the vehicle electronics by Toyota found that the driver never had her foot on the brake in the moments before impact.


But the SMART team may have helped Toyota's adversaries on March 12, when it inspected a 2007 Camry after an alleged sudden acceleration event.


Linda Tang, an Orange County resident who is suing Toyota over alleged defects in the Camry electronics, said her vehicle suddenly accelerated after she had taken it to a dealership for repairs under recall.


Toyota initially did not inspect the vehicle. It was only after Tang's attorney enlisted congressional investigators to contact the Department of Transportation that the inspection was scheduled.


At a sophisticated Toyota facility in Orange County, a large team of company technicians spent nearly seven hours going over the vehicle. Two federal safety investigators flew in from Washington to oversee the inspection. They were joined by an automotive electronics expert hired by Tang's attorney.

Near the near the end of the day, the Toyota technicians acknowledged a major error.


A shim that was supposed to have been installed in the gas pedal assembly under the recall to prevent sticking was missing, according to federal officials and allegations in Tang's suit.


"It was shocking," said William Rosenbluth, the automotive electronics expert who works for Tang's attorney, Michael Lewis Kelly. "It wasn't there and the paperwork says it was put in."


Toyota officials declined to discuss the inspection.

[Abu2]

hahaa....haha, mantap ru range rovernyaa..

[buatandi]

sekarang lagi trend suka karena hemat yah.....

suka honda karena konsumsi bensinnya irit, hemat bbm
suka suzuki karena harganya murah, hemat uang saat membelinya
suka toyota karena resale valuenya bagus, hemat depresiasi harganya
suka mitsubishi karena daya angkutnya besar, hemat ongkos kirim
suka daihatsu karena spare part murah, hemat biaya perbaikan
suka mazda karena bodynya keren, hemat biaya modifikasi
suka subaru karena larinya kenceng, hemat waktu

hemat kan.....

ikutan om pramuka
honda rese cat ny soft paint
suzuki bole lah hard paint kecuali om peot punya single stage paint
toyota gampang bgt di poles ny
mitsubishi lom perna poles gosip ny soft paint juga
daihatsu gampang poles juga
mazda lom pernah gosipny cat ny tipis
subaru megang juga lom pernah

[asudarsono]

utk sementara draw dulu kali...

Harus dibikin supaya draw terus, nih. Kalau seimbang tambah seru deh.

Adu ayam dilarang
Adu banteng jauh
Adu kepala sakit
Mending adu - adu di sini, mumpung masih halal.

[FortunerMan]

http://otomotif.kompas.com/read/xml/201 ... en.6.Bulan

Prius Masih Terlaris di Jepang, Inden 6 Bulan

TOKYO, KOMPAS.com — Kendati isu penarikan dan perbaikan atau recall Prius karena masalah rem gencar di seluruh dunia, hal ini ternyata tidak membuat konsumennya surut. Terbukti, Asosiasi Dealer Mobil Jepang (JADA) pada Maret lalu menunjukkan, penjualan mobil hibrida ini mencapai 35.546 unit. Hal ini menjadikannya sebagai mobil terlaris di Jepang.

Prestasi terlaris itu dipertahankan oleh Prius selama 11 bulan berturut-turut. Dengan itu pula, penjualan mobil hibrida ini di Jepang selama 12 bulan sudah mencapai 277.485 unit. Jumlah ini mengalahkan penjualan mobil yang sebelumnya paling laku di Jepang, yiatu Honda Fit atau di Indonesia dikenal dengan Jazz. Produk top Honda ini terjual 173.154 unit selama 12 bulan.

Karena masih tingginya permintaan konsumen Jepang terhadap Prius, masa inden terhadap mobil ini cukup lama, yaitu 6 bulan. Dijelaskan pula, tingginya minat konsumen Jepang membeli Prius ini disebabkan oleh adanya insentif dari pemerintah untuk mobil-mobil irit bahan bakar. Dalam hal ini, Prius belum terkalahkan!

[toyotaman]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100411/ap_ ... _tactics_2


In Toyota cases, evasion becomes tactic


By CURT ANDERSON and DANNY ROBBINS, Associated Press Writers Curt Anderson And Danny Robbins, Associated Press Writers – Sun Apr 11, 2:38 pm ET


MIAMI – Toyota has routinely engaged in questionable, evasive and deceptive legal tactics when sued, frequently claiming it does not have information it is required to turn over and sometimes even ignoring court orders to produce key documents, an Associated Press investigation shows.


In a review of lawsuits filed around the country involving a wide range of complaints not just the sudden acceleration problems that have led to millions of Toyotas being recalled the automaker has hidden the existence of tests that would be harmful to its legal position and claimed key material was difficult to get at its headquarters in Japan. It has withheld potentially damaging documents and refused to release data stored electronically in its vehicles.


For example, in a Colorado product liability lawsuit filed by a man whose young daughter was killed in a 4Runner rollover crash, Toyota withheld documents about internal roof strength tests despite a federal judge's order that such information be produced, according to court records. The attorneys for Jon Kurylowicz now say such documents might have changed the outcome of the case, which ended in a 2005 jury verdict for Toyota.


"Mr. Kurylowicz went to trial without having been given all the relevant evidence and all the evidence the court ordered Toyota to produce," attorney Stuart Ollanik wrote in a new federal lawsuit accusing Toyota of fraud in the earlier case. "The Kurylowicz trial was not a fair trial."


In another case involving a Texas woman killed when her Toyota Land Cruiser lurched backward and pinned her against a garage wall, the Japanese automaker told lawyers for the woman's family it was unaware of any similar cases. Yet less than a year earlier, Toyota had settled a nearly identical lawsuit in the same state involving a Baptist minister who was severely injured after he said his Land Cruiser abruptly rolled backward over him. Under court discovery rules, Toyota had an obligation to inform the woman's attorneys about the case when formally asked.


"Automobile manufacturers, in my practice, have been the toughest to deal with when it comes to sharing information, but Toyota has no peer," said attorney Ernest Cannon, who represented the family of 35-year-old Lisa Evans, who died in 2002 in the Houston suburb of Sugar Land.


The AP reviewed numerous cases around the country in which Toyota's actions were evasive, and sometimes even deceptive, in providing answers to questions posed by plaintiffs. Court rules generally allow a person or company who is sued to object to turning over requested information; it's permitted and even expected that defense attorneys play hardball, but it's a violation to claim evidence does not exist when it does.


Similar claims have been lodged by Dimitrios Biller, a former Toyota attorney who sued the company in August, contending it withheld evidence in considerably older rollover cases.


Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has subpoenaed some of Biller's still-undisclosed records, says they show possible violations of discovery orders.


Toyota disputes Towns' statement and the accusations of deception. In a statement to the AP, Toyota said it plays by the rules when it comes to defending itself.


"Toyota takes its legal obligations seriously and strives to maintain the highest professional and ethical standards, in connection with litigation and otherwise," the company said. "We are confident we have acted appropriately with respect to product liability litigation."


How Toyota handled past lawsuits could indicate how it will deal with more than 130 potential class-action lawsuits filed by owners who claim the recent recalls have triggered a sharp loss in their vehicles' value. Separately, Toyota faces nearly 100 federal wrongful death and injury lawsuits by victims who blame their crashes on sudden acceleration.


A panel of federal judges decided last week to consolidate the sudden acceleration-related cases before U.S. District Judge James V. Selna in Orange County, Calif., near Los Angeles. Selna will handle key pretrial matters in all the cases, including decisions on what material and documents Toyota will be required to produce as evidence.


The dozens of lawsuits reviewed by the AP, spanning the past decade, dealt with allegations of vehicle rollovers, faulty air bag deployments, defective transmissions, bad brakes and crashes blamed on sudden acceleration — the issue at the heart of the company's current recall of some 8 million vehicles worldwide. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has linked 52 deaths to accelerator-related crashes.


Additional related lawsuits examined in the AP review found:


_Toyota hid the existence of its roof strength tests in numerous cases. A new potential class-action lawsuit filed in California on behalf of two women left paralyzed by separate Toyota rollover crashes contends that recently uncovered company documents contradict sworn testimony by Toyota officials that the company had no written standard for how far vehicle roofs could be crushed. The long-hidden documents indicate Toyota did have such a standard: roofs could come no closer than a half-millimeter from test dummies' heads in a rollover crash.


"This type of conduct by the Toyota defendants is illegal, immoral and unprofessional," said attorney E. Todd Tracy in a similar recent lawsuit accusing Toyota of fraud in older cases. "The Toyota defendants' cloak and dagger games must be terminated."


_Toyota claimed in court documents that a 2000 Camry had "no component" to record its speed at the time of a crash. A Texas woman suing the automaker asserted she was injured when the air bag failed to deploy. The case went to trial last September and ended with a jury ruling in Toyota's favor.


The attorney, Stephen Van Gaasbeck of San Antonio, later found documents showing the Camry did record such information and that Toyota had the ability to download it from vehicles as early as 1997, circumstances that now cause him to question the company's honesty.


"If we had the data, and the data said the speed was above what their air bag would have deployed at, then yes, it would have been a different case," said Van Gaasbeck. He added that an appeal based on the new information is unlikely because Texas appellate courts would likely favor Toyota based on previous rulings.


_The attorney for 76-year-old retiree Robert Elmes — hospitalized for five weeks after a 2006 crash in Pennsylvania in which he says his 2002 Camry surged forward unexpectedly — has sought repeatedly and unsuccessfully in federal court to obtain Toyota documents concerning the car's electronic throttle control.


Questions surrounding that device are at the center of the government's investigation into sudden acceleration. Toyota has denied the electronic throttle control is to blame for the crashes. Elmes, of Canonsburg, Pa., said it's clear Toyota is "dragging it out as long as possible" to avoid making any disclosures in court involving the electronic throttle control. Elmes filed his lawsuit in 2008, well before Toyota's recalls began.


"Before the accident, I thought that was the nicest car I ever owned. Now I think Toyota's interest is only in the bottom line, period, and they don't care about safety," Elmes said in a telephone interview. "I wouldn't take another Toyota if they gave it to me."


Toyota has filed court papers asking that most of these new lawsuits accusing the company of fraud years ago be included in the broader consolidation of sudden acceleration cases.


Attorneys who regularly defend corporate clients say it's common for plaintiffs' lawyers to complain they are not receiving the information they need and that Toyota's tactics do not necessarily indicate nefarious intent.


"It's always a battle in these big cases between plaintiffs and corporations as to what documents they have and whether or not they produce everything they should have," said Matthew Cairns, president-elect of the 22,500-member DRI-Voice of the Defense Bar group of civil defense attorneys. "Plaintiffs always try to get more, hoping to find something. It's for the court to ultimately resolve who is right."


Still, some attorneys who have fought Toyota in the past say the company's evasiveness exceeds the normal legal back-and-forth and that Toyota may have benefited from being based in another country.


"They've used the Pacific Ocean as a great defense to producing documents," said Graham Esdale, a lawyer in Montgomery, Ala., who has sued Toyota. "If Ford or General Motors tells you something and you don't believe that it's right, you can get a court order to go get access to the documents instead of relying on them. We can just go there and start poring through documents. We don't have that with the Japanese manufacturers."

[FortunerMan]

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/toyota ... ail-sales/

Toyota: We’re #1 In March Retail Sales

Flights are delayed, so let’s hear Toyota’s take on on March sales: “We out-retailed both Ford and GM by nearly 40,000 units,”according to Don Esmond, head of automotive operations at TMS USA. “Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. sold more vehicles to retail customers than any other automaker.”

In an article at Automotive News [sub], Toyota makes the case that the momentum is back, and that its incentive programs for March didn’t steal forward sales, but picked up those waiting on the sidelines during the recalls. And the incentives are not about to stop now. “Toyota Division boss Bob Carter said the New York auto show that the company has no plans to halt incentives. “Short-term, we gotta sell cars.’”

Exactly what form those incentives will take isn’t yet clear, but come they will:

“We will continue to take the necessary steps to keep our dealers competitive,” said Don Esmond, head of automotive operations for Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. in a sales call today. “We won’t walk away from our customers. I’m sure they will continue to see good deals in the marketplace.”

Carter adds: “Dealers needed a shot in the arm. I have to restore sales, and I have to do it now. I’m not going cold turkey in April,” he said.
And the outlook for the year? “Esmond said he expects Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. to finish the year with a sales increase of about 10 percent – the same as he projected for the entire industry. Through March, the company’s sales were up 7 percent.”

[Hansen]

sekarang lagi trend suka karena hemat yah.....

suka honda karena konsumsi bensinnya irit, hemat bbm
suka suzuki karena harganya murah, hemat uang saat membelinya
suka toyota karena resale valuenya bagus, hemat depresiasi harganya
suka mitsubishi karena daya angkutnya besar, hemat ongkos kirim
suka daihatsu karena spare part murah, hemat biaya perbaikan
suka mazda karena bodynya keren, hemat biaya modifikasi
suka subaru karena larinya kenceng, hemat waktu

hemat kan.....

ikutan om pramuka
honda rese cat ny soft paint
suzuki bole lah hard paint kecuali om peot punya single stage paint
toyota gampang bgt di poles ny
mitsubishi lom perna poles gosip ny soft paint juga
daihatsu gampang poles juga
mazda lom pernah gosipny cat ny tipis
subaru megang juga lom pernah

kalo si andi sekali dipoles langsung muncrattt......

[toyotaman]

http://www.mlive.com/opinion/saginaw/in ... ce_th.html


Toyota recalls are evidence that Japanese infallibility is a myth
By The Saginaw News staff
March 10, 2010, 3:32PM


The myth of Japanese automotive superiority is crumbling under the weight of multiple recalls of Toyotas and Hondas.


Various Toyota models, with more than 5.3 million in the United States alone, accelerate on their own due to sticky gas pedals and/or interfering floor mats. Priuses with brake failures. Corollas and Tundras with steering problems, and spare tires falling off Tundras due to rusting retainers. Hondas with window switches that can go up in flames and nearly 1 million Hondas with air bags that deploy like a hand grenade and send shrapnel though the passenger compartment.


All are evidence that Japanese infallibility is just a myth. A myth finely crafted by the automotive and mainstream media.


Toyota’s handling of the acceleration problem is, in my experience, typical of Japanese industrial culture: Never admit to a mistake.


The U.S. government raised questions about unintended acceleration in Toyota cars in 2007, and by some reports as early as 2003. Toyota blamed the problem on floor mats. When it became apparent there was more to the problem, Toyota shifted the blame to its U.S. supplier CTS.


My 30-plus years of experience in auto component design leads me to conclude that CTS was manufacturing gas pedals to Toyota’s specifications. Further, my experience tells me that problems which occur with time and wear are most likely engineering design problems, not quality issues, which generally appear early on, if not immediately.


I believe much of the problem is related to the Japanese culture of superiority. It was this culture that led Japan to believe it was destined to rule Asia and perhaps the world, and which to this day has left the world waiting for Japan to atone for its aggression and atrocities of World War II. If the county can’t admit to mistakes made 70 years ago, I doubt it will ever come clean on sticking gas pedals.

[FortunerMan]

[toyotaman]

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/the-tr ... ty-survey/


The Truth About JD Power’s 2010 Vehicle Dependability Survey
By Michael Karesh on March 18, 2010


I conduct a car reliability survey at TrueDelta.com. Since we promptly update our results four times a year, we can report on new models ahead of anyone else. Last year, we announced that the 2009 Jaguar XF was faring poorly. This provoked a blistering backlash from owners at a particular Jaguar forum. In the end, threads on reliability were deleted and future ones all but banned in the interest of preserving what remained of the UK auto industry.


The outraged owners argued that TrueDelta’s results could not be correct, since Jaguar had just been declared the most dependable make by J.D. Power. I pointed out that the VDS covers the third year of ownership, 2006 in that case, and that Jaguar had discontinued, redesigned, or replaced every model in its line save the XJ in the interim. So the results did not apply to the XF, or the current XK for that matter.


Well, J.D. Power has now released the 2010 Vehicle Dependability Survey (VDS), which covers 2007s in their third year of ownership, and, as predicted, the redesigned XK has, all by its lonesome, sunk Jaguar’s ranking from 1st to 23rd. And it’ll only get uglier once the XF is reflected in these stats in another two years.


#1 this year: Porsche. Many people will wonder how Porsche fared so well. One likely factor: Porsches are often weekend cars that aren’t driven much. J.D. Power might consider doing what TrueDelta does, and post average odometer readings. A larger factor: THERE WAS NO 2007 CAYENNE—Porsche skipped straight from 2006 to 2008. The Cayenne is likely more troublesome than the sports cars, and is certainly driven more. So don’t expect a top VDS score for Porsche next year, when the Cayenne is again part of the mix.


“Long term” for J.D. Power continues to mean “the third year of ownership.” It used to mean the fifth year, but manufacturers have little use for fifth-year data, and this survey primarily exists to serve manufacturers willing to pay large sums for detailed results.


Many car buyers, though, are much more interested in how cars fare after the 3/36 warranty ends. J.D. Power has no information for them, hoping that car buyers will accept third-year problem frequencies as a sufficient indicator of how a car will perform over the long haul. Unfortunately, in many cases it is not. TrueDelta’s data suggest that all too often cars take a turn for the worse either soon after the warranty ends or after 100,000 miles.


As usual, the public gets brand-level scores rather than model-level scores from J.D. Power. Brand-level scores are of limited use for a car buyer, and can actually misinform as much as they inform. After all, people don’t buy the entire line. They buy a particular model. And the scores of models can vary widely within a brand.


Much is made of which brands did better this year (Porsche, Lincoln), and which did worse (Jaguar). Well, as noted above, the brand averages can be heavily influenced by the introduction of a single new design or the absence of a single old design.


For these and other reasons a focus on model-level scores would be much more valid and useful.


Also worth noting: as in the past most makes are tightly bunched around the average, 155 problems per 100 cars this year. Consumer Reports considers any score within 20 percent of the average in its own survey to be “about average.” Applying this metric to J.D. Power’s results, 21 of the 36 brands are “about average.”


J.D. Power notes that for Cadillac, Ford, Hyundai, Lincoln, and Mercury perceptions of reliability lag reality. No surprise, since (as I’ve found all too often) people often judge (and more often than not reject) data based on how these data fit their perceptions rather than judging their perceptions based on how they fit the data.


J.D. Power’s explicit solution: convince consumers of gains in reliability. The implicit solution: pay to include VDS results in your ads. But are perceptions based on the VDS any more likely to be correct? Or, as seen in the Porsche and Jaguar cases, are they just as often part of the problem?

[FortunerMan]