We're frequently asked about how we decide to equip the test vehicles we buy. Since we buy every vehicle we test, we have more control over trim level and equipment than car magazines and Web sites who borrow vehicles from a manufacturer. These press fleets aren't limitless. In many cases, their size has dwindled in recent years as manufacturers look to reduce costs, making it even harder for the media to set up apples-to-apples comparisons. Since car companies want to do well in magazine tests, those press vehicles often have every performance-oriented feature available, are high trim line, and sometimes omit weight-adding options.
Choosing the right pickup truck variation to test is a difficult challenge--one that took a lot of consideration on our part. Pickups are unique in that they offer seemingly millions of combinations of body styles, trims, engines, and axle ratios. According to recent sales patterns, we knew that half-ton crew cab 4x4 trucks in a mid-level trim are the popular choice for most consumers, so we focused on those for our recent test.
Beyond those considerations, when we buy a test vehicle, choosing its equipment requires balancing several goals. The process is complicated since manufacturers don't make "ease of magazine comparison test construction" part of a vehicle's design brief, nor do dealers necessarily stock similar truck packages from brand to brand. In general, we want to test a representative vehicle that is comparable to other vehicles in the test group (and previously tested peer vehicles). We also typically test the version--powertrain and trim level--that most regular consumers will buy. And, even though price is not a factor in our scoring, it's nice to keep the as-tested prices in the same ballpark.
Read Article