Consumer Reports: Porsche 911 beats 'Vette and Viper

[racy]

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- In testing the most expensive group of cars the magazine has ever purchased, Consumer Reports rated the Porsche 911 as the top high-performance sports car.

The 911 was tested against the Chevrolet Corvette Z06, the Dodge Viper and 11 other performance vehicles in a competitive test of luxury sports cars.

The prices of the cars ranged from $45,545 for a Lotus Elise to $105,855 for a Mercedes-Benz SL550.

Consumer Reports, published by the non-profit Consumer's Union, purchases all the vehicles it tests for the magazine. The vehicles are bought anonymously from retail auto dealers.

Cars are tested on public roads as well as at the magazine's test track facility in Connecticut. Cars are put through a variety of tests, including high-speed maneuvering, braking and cornering.

The scoring system used for these cars was different from that generally used by the magazine for minivans and sedans, said David Champion, senior director of Consumer Reports' Auto Test Center.

While the scoring was still heavily weighted toward safety, including emergency handling, factors like acceleration were given more importance than, for instance, trunk space, Champion said.

Comfort, convenience and day-to-day drivability were still factors in the rankings, though.

Performance battle
"The 911 wowed us enough with its acceleration, handling, and braking for us to rate it our top sports car," said Champion. "The 911 is also easy to drive, but its much less expensive Boxster sibling performed almost as well."

The 911 cost about $87,500 as tested. The Corvette Z06's price was about $77,000.

The Corvette impressed the magazine's test drivers with its powerful acceleration and stable feel. The magazine called its handling "less precise" than the 911's, though.

The magazine called the Corvette Z06's predicted reliability "Poor," which prevented them from actually recommending the car in spite of high scores for performance and comfort.

The V-10-powered Viper ranked as the fastest car ever tested by the magazine with a 0-60 time of 4.2 seconds. But it was only a tenth-of-a-second quicker than the Corvette Z06 and beat the 6-cylinder 911 by just two-tenths.

In other performance measures, it was no better than those cars, according to the magazine, in spite of a price that was $15,000 higher than the second-ranked Corvette Z06.

Ultimately, the Viper ranked second-to-last out of the 14 in the magazine's point system.

The Viper was rated as "Poor" in most "Comfort and Convenience" areas including "Ride," "Noise," and "Front seat comfort."

Still, Champion said, "I really liked the Viper."

The V-10-powered Viper has the kind of personality that's lacking from more coolly competent cars like the top-ranked Porsche 911.

"It's brutal," he said. "Everything about it is brutal."

Of the 14 cars tested, only three actually got a "Recommended" check mark from the magazine. To be recommended a car must have good crash test scores and good "Predicted Reliability" as calculated by the magazine from its own survey data.

The Nissan 350Z, BMW Z4 and Lexus SC430 were recommended. Those cars finished in the bottom half of the point rankings, however.

The magazine didn't have sufficient data to gauge reliability for seven of the 14 cars. Of the other seven, three had "Poor" reliability. Those were the Corvette Z06, the Corvette convertible and the Mercedes SL550.

The Mercedes SLK350 was rated as having "Fair" reliability.

Results of the test will appear in the magazine's October issue.

Article here: http://www.cnn.com/2006/AUTOS/08/30/...ars/index.html

[racy]

Consumer Reports does it again. It absolutely boggles me as to how they can rate predicted reliability of the Z06 as "poor", when the C6 platform is entering its 3rd year of production, and was heavily based on the race/time proven C5 platform.

[GMfan2381]

Wow... Who would have guessed CR would give the Vette a "poor" rating on PREDICTED RELIABILITY. Heres a prediction CR. GMFAN thinks your mag is crap. I wonder if its gonna come true....

What a joke.

[Quickening]

Predicted reliability..wow. What a bunch of BS.

[TahoeMikeZ71]

That's why I hate Consumer Reports.

[tama z71]

Hey CR, whats the predicted reliability of a Honda Accord if I fill the tank with lead-based paint and drive without tires?

Douche bags.

[jman196]

I veiw this automotive journalism as a heaping pile of excrement. What is wrong with these people??? At least give solid proven facts and arguments against the cars, not an estimation. WTF, their work is BS, why not just leave it at the test, they like the 911 the best, done. but to rag on cars and not give reasoning for it is BS.

and I wonder how the viper they had was faster than the Z06?

[86fleet]

Predicited relibility? What the F***? While I usually avoid using the B-word, this is definatly bais

[ScottS]

I'm not usually quick to jump on the anti-C.R. bandwagon, but this time, yeesh. To top it off, the 350z recommended, but not the Vette, insane.

[racy]

Originally Posted by ScottS

I'm not usually quick to jump on the anti-C.R. bandwagon, but this time, yeesh. To top it off, the 350z recommended, but not the Vette, insane.

Yeah, my sentiments exactly. I don't know how the 350Z got a recommendation either.

I typically read the CR bashing threads with a grain of salt...but after reading this report, I have to admit that I can understand the bias complaints.

I wish someone would do an expose on who funds this magazine.

[2648562]

Who in the heck takes them serious now?

[WishIhadatruck]

Originally Posted by 2648562

Who in the heck takes them serious now?

Lots of people, that is why it is important for GM to make cars that CR likes and are reliable per their survey. Whether it always makes for a better vehicle is up for grabs. Clearly CR has different priorities for their vehicles than many of us. I think it is safe to say that the Corvette is less reliable than a Toyota Camry. Now if Toyota made a car with the performance of the Vette, would it still be more reliable? It is hard to compare the reliability of a supercar with the average car which is exactly what they do.

I subscribe to CR for the data. I usually ignore their interpretations. I have noticed that some of their tire tests have matched up closely with car magazine tests and even with surveys on the tirerack. They do a great job of rating toasters too! The car tests are more for amusement than anything. You have to read the detail to see why they rated one car higher than another and see if it is something you even care about. There is a lot of valid info. in their car tests. Just depends on if you care about the same things as they do. If you use your pick-up like a car mostly and never haul anything heavier than mulch then the Tundra probably is the best truck. If you actually haul something heavier then it probably isn't.

[Bornfromparents]

Um who uses consumers reports for sports cars. The people who use consumers reports as their bible are not the type of people to buy sports cars only unless you consider the miata a sports car.

[geozinger]

Originally Posted by WishIhadatruck

Lots of people, that is why it is important for GM to make cars that CR likes and are reliable per their survey. Whether it always makes for a better vehicle is up for grabs. Clearly CR has different priorities for their vehicles than many of us. I think it is safe to say that the Corvette is less reliable than a Toyota Camry. Now if Toyota made a car with the performance of the Vette, would it still be more reliable? It is hard to compare the reliability of a supercar with the average car which is exactly what they do.

I subscribe to CR for the data. I usually ignore their interpretations. I have noticed that some of their tire tests have matched up closely with car magazine tests and even with surveys on the tirerack. They do a great job of rating toasters too! The car tests are more for amusement than anything. You have to read the detail to see why they rated one car higher than another and see if it is something you even care about. There is a lot of valid info. in their car tests. Just depends on if you care about the same things as they do. If you use your pick-up like a car mostly and never haul anything heavier than mulch then the Tundra probably is the best truck. If you actually haul something heavier then it probably isn't.

Wish,

The problem with much of the stuff from CR is the method of capturing the data. There's a page on a website set up by a guy who knows how to measure these things: http://www.allpar.com/cr.html. He also covers some other urban myths, too.

Good reading, made me change the way I look at CR and other 'consumer guides'.

[mkaresh]

My response over at Autoblog:

If there's one thing I've learned from the cars people compare on the price comparison part of my site, it's that sports car buyers don't thoroughly evaluate every aspect of the car before deciding which one to buy. Most sports cars today are quite distinctive, and people know from their gut which one they want.

In addition, CR knew even before conducting the test that they could only recommend one of the cars, because they either had insufficient data or poor reliability ratings. Ridiculous. It's like a third world election where everyone is forced to go through the motions even though the outcome is preordained.

Is even one additional person going to buy a 911 because it won this comparison test? If anyone going to now not buy the Viper because it placed near the bottom?

Even CR's head car guy admits how much he personally enjoyed the thoroughly flawed Viper, red hot rockers and all. It's kind of like that.

I've posted my overall take on comparison tests here:

http://www.truedelta.com/pieces/comparison_tests.php

My thesis applies ten times over to sports cars.

In the end, I must ask, "What was the point?" Why spend a ton of money to buy a bunch of cars they know they can't recommend, and that few people care to see objective ratings on?

Well, they've been trying especially hard lately to convince the rest of us that they're really car guys. (Perhaps because they know that reliability differences often aren't large--time to find something else to base the business on.) Consider this a PR exercise more than anything else. Hopefully the cash came out of the PR budget; to take it out of the regular testing budget would be an irresponsible use of members' dues.

If you want to help provide an alternative, then please join my panel. I can do this without people's money--I'm not asking for anyone's monetary support--but I cannot do it without participants.

As long as there's no alternative, people interested in reliability have to go to CR.