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Detroit Fuming Over Consumer Reports Top Ten Picks

March 8, 2006

• GM Offers Employee Prices to Spur Slow Sales • U.S. Consumers Favor Japanese and German Automakers • Automakers Report Huge Drop in Sales • GM Cuts Prices for February • Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM • New GM Sale May Challenge Bargain Hunters • GM Hangs on as World's No. 1 Automaker • Saturn Outlook Gets High Marks from Consumer Reports • Summer Car Sales Start to Sizzle • Consumer Reports Lists Best New Car Deals • Chrysler Dumps Remaining 2006 Inventory on Used Car Market --- • More about Auto Sales ...

This year's Consumer Reports top ten list of vehicles named only Japanese automakers, leaving Detroit out in the cold for the first time since 1997 when the list began.

Detroit auto executives were a little hot -- if not burning -- and have fired back at the consumer magazine.

Lori Queen, who is a General Motors executive involved in small car production told the Automotive News in an e-mail that the editors and reporters who put together the Consumer Reports auto issue are "the most unprofessional group of people I have ever worked with."

"They are totally nonobjective and go to great extremes to paint a picture for their paid subscription readers, who primarily buy Japanese cars. They don't consider price or price differences, they don't consider model mix or consumer preferences, they buy the cheapest car they can find and then base all their opinions on a limited sample," Queen told the automotive magazine.

For the record, the Consumer Reports top ten included the Honda Civic, Honda Accord, Acura TL, Infiniti M35, Subaru Forester, Toyota Highlander Hybrid, Honda Ridgeline, Honda Odyssey, Toyota Prius and Subaru Impreza WRX/STi.

No wonder Detroit was fuming. But Consumer Reports promises the vehicles were selected because of performance, versatility, reliability, safety and interior fit and finish.

No politics here, the organization insists.

"Our findings are driven first, foremost and exclusively by a commitment to providing consumers with expert, independent, test-based and survey-based information," said Jim Guest president of Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports.

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