Thar She Blows!: Money Magazine Ranks the Top Five Full Size Sedans

Value has it's own criteria I guess. You have various degrees of what quality is.

Some value total cost of ownership including repairs. Others may say zero breakdown regardless of price.

The car with less total cost of ownership might break down twice in 3 years, but cost of those repairs may not exceed the premium of a car that never breaksdown.

The main thing is that just beacuse someone has a different viewpoint doesn't mean they are wrong.

Value is in the eyes of the beholder.

HaHa

American car copanies are doing the right thing by getting rid of useless Union workers and the reliability will go way up.

You see with Union workers it doesn't matter if they're building cars or dishwashers, just as long as they get paid.

With Union workers there's no passion in doing their jobs.

I agree that it's not lazy workers; it's overpaid workers. The big 3 have close to a $2000 per car cost disadvantage (Higher hourly labor rates, excessive health care coverage and retirement benefits). This give them no choice but to cheapen the cars.

Of course, crappy marketing and design doesn't help either.

then how come both japanese and german companies consider the u.s. a LOW COST manufacturing venue?

not as low cost as e. europe, canada, or mexico, but definately low cost vs. the home country.

Strange List.

Sorry but I have to disagree that American car rival Japanese. First, American car has improve but is no where near Japanese quality. Secondly, have you look at king of recall for 2006 here on autospies? GM recall almost every single car they have sold. American car is "NO" near Japanese quality.

I HATE YOU

WRONG.

When price isn't an object:

1. Mercedes-Benz S-Class
2. Audi A8
3. Lexus LS
4. BMW 7 Series
5. Jaguar XJ

...

86. Chrysler 300

when time spent in the REPAIR bays is not a problem:

1. Mercedes-Benz S-Class
2. Audi A8

4. BMW 7 Series
5. Jaguar XJ
.
.
.

99. Lexus GX
100. any other model Lexus

when downtime IS factored in:

1. any Lexus
2. TOYOTA Avalons
3. any other toyota
4. Acuras
5. Infinitis
6. Hondas
7 - 15 or so: the rest of the Asian contingent,
INCLUDING Hyundai
16 - 30: the Detroit contingent

30 - 99: most Euro brands
100: Range Rover

for any MODERN car, reliability should NOT be considered a luxury. it must be STANDARD.

that it would be lacking in ANY car costing more than $15,000, is absolutely inexcusable.

now, if some LUXURY car buyers are willing to swap reliability for "heritage," "magic feel," or whatever, and if they are willing to pay extra PREMIUM PRICES for the "privilege of this sacrifice," well that's perfectly OK. it's only (their) money.

hah! you give more credibility to Edmunds so called Total Cost to Own, which is strictly FORMULAIC, than to CR's actual consumer REPORTED repair records?

you probably also believe Shrub is one the best presidents we've ever had too.

how accurate are the Edmunds TCOs?

what they claim would be the REPAIR costs for just ONE year on my toyota truck, exceeded my actual costs for over TEN years.

maintenance costs aren't so distorted, but still exceeded MY costs by at least a factor of 3x. (but i do eschew costly DEALER visits.)

the fact that provide so SIMILIAR figures for different brands, shows they probably derive the costs from set FORMULAS. with NO actual EXPERIENCE of REAL relative repair rates.