unpocoloco

I was just checking out what my girlfriend's car is worth (it's a 1997 Chrysler Sebring, if you're curious) since it keeps having problems, and she's not sure whether to keep it or sell it.

I came across the "Ratings" section at Edmunds.com. It had some interesting stuff from J.D. Power and Associates.

I pretty much scoured all of Edmunds before I bought my '8, so I'm not sure how I missed this, but I then decided to check out what ol' J.D. had to say about the RX-8.

J.D. Power Overall 2 / 5
J.D. Power Mechanical Quality 2 / 5
J.D. Power Body & Interior Quality 3 / 5
J.D. Power Feature and Accessory Quality 3 / 5
J.D. Power Performance 2 / 5
J.D. Power Creature Comforts 5 / 5
J.D. Power Style 3 / 5

2 out of 5 for Overall?? for Performance and Mechanical quality?? Only 3 for style???!! What the heck were they smoking?!

This, sir (and associates), is an insult!

Nemesis8

iTrader: (3)

Nothing that was very good it seems...

They can shove it

HiTMaNN

Meh its an opinon when it comes to buying stuff i dont take others peoples word on it. I get what i want.

BoilerX8

Actually, some of it may be our fellow rx8 owners, as I know I got a survey from them on the 8. Mine were all 4's and 5's though.

Razz1

It's due to all the complaints on this site about gas milage.

But that isn't part of mechanical.

The flooding issue has been on a few cars, and it was fixed right away.

So how do they get a 2?

Ah... how many 8's do ya see sitting on the side of the road? how many of the 8's got towed in respect to sales. Less than 1 % I bet.

danielk015

iTrader: (1)

isnt JD Power mostly a survey from customers??? like the initial quality and all that mumbo jumbo?? i have yet to fill one out..

FoxTypeR

It can be statistically proven that people who have a strong opinion (even more so if negative) are more apt to fill out a survey than those who have a moderate or slightly positive/negative opinion. Realistically, most cars should get higher marks in areas such as performance and style, after all, they did buy the damn car in the first place, so it should be the best compromise they found. It's not like there's a limited market in the 24-34k range for cars...

MrMethane

My girlfriend's father is a big car guy. She tells me that JD Power and Associates approval is just something the car companies pay for, its not a reliable review of a car. I'm not sure how true that is, just what I heard.

rx8wannahave

All I know is that every "car" magazine loved the RX8 and continues to love it. They rank it as one of the best 2+2 out there and it consistently beats out the competition when put in a X vs 8 article...so JD's survey is some how skewed in my opinion. (Probably a lot of people that did not know what to expect out of a rotary car are complaining)

I have taken at least 2 or maybe even 3 surveys and I rank the 8 "overall average" at 4/5 so where they are getting 2/5 is beyond me. We should all do our own poll here at rx8club and send it to them with a letter explaining our disgust with their ranking of our beloved 8.

unpocoloco

It may be important to note that their ranking is relative based:
5 Blobs: Among the best
4 Blobs: Better than most
3 Blobs: Does not really stand out
2 Blobs: The rest

They don't even define 1 "Blob".

How they can say the styling not even "Does not really stand out", but is lumped into "The rest" is absolutely beyond me. I almost wonder if they made a typo in that and the Creature Comforts, and swapped those two.

I don't know where JD Power comes from, but it does initial quality (0-90 days), Midterm Ratings (1-2 years), and Long Term Ratings (4-5 years). And they use 3 separate dartboards for each.

mkaresh

I wasn't aware JDPA did a midterm rating. I'm only aware of 90 day and 3-year studies.

As has already been noted, two blobs simply means below average. And you can't really tell how far below or what the absolute level is. IQS is pretty meaningless for an individual consumer, as just about every car out there rounds to 1 problem per vehicle. The best brands are at 0.8, the worst at 1.5. We're not talking about the difference between zero issues and ten here.

Both CR and JDPA like to report dots rather than actual numbers. Supposedly this is to make the ratings clearer, but it also serves to hide just how significant the difference is between a pair of vehicles.

I'm developing reliability research that will be much more meaningful. I'm going to report absolute numbers for trips to the shop, days in the shop, and odds of getting a lemon. For the RX-8 to be included in this research I need at least 25 per model year. For details see my site (url in sig). If you have any questions after reading the info there just ask away.

MI_FamilyMan

Unpocoloco, the question is... do YOU like your RX-8??