Every day brings test for Consumer Reports' staff
By Bill Griffith, Globe Staff, 4/26/2003
David Champion has the best job in the automotive world.
And the 18 people who work for him at the Consumer Reports Auto Test facility in East Haddam, Conn., have the second-best job.
Their workdays are filled with putting the 50 vehicles that Consumer Reports purchases each year through their paces in the company's backyard.
That backyard is the 327-acre site that Consumer Reports refers to as its campus. Originally, it was a hilltop that was blasted to construct the Connecticut Dragway. Now, instead of being a monument to speed, the site contains a wide variety of testing stations plus the latest equipment used to compile the exhaustive data that go into the magazine's monthly auto reports and its top-selling April ''Annual Auto Issue.''
So much data are accumulated that the staff is always looking at new ways to present it to the public. Thus, Consumer Reports now publishes a series of annual automotive guides including a ''New Car Preview,'' ''Used Car Buying Guide,'' ''Sport Utility Special,'' and ''Road Tests.''
Testing categories include handling, accident avoidance, acceleration, braking, ride evaluation, fuel economy, seat comfort, fit and finish, climate control, visibility, cargo capacity, and everyday driving ease.
Besides measurable data, each of the 18 drivers assigns a subjective rating to each car in each judging category, using a five-point scale.
What has made the Consumer Reports ratings more valuable over the years is the growing weight the testers' subjective ratings carry.
That comes into play when a model's numerical rating comes in the middle ground between, say, a ''3'' (average) and ''4'' (above average). That's where the staff's personal experiences with the vehicle are, well, put to the test. ''We're real people, not the white-coated toaster-testers a lot of people imagine us to be,'' said Champion.
The magazine's 3.5 million subscribers have a big say in the ratings, too. It typically sends out surveys asking readers to rate their automobiles, appliances, and other consumer items.
''We get 480,000 responses,'' said Champion earlier this month in a meeting with the New England Motor Press Association. Of those, maybe 30 percent are rejected, including those in which all the most negative boxes are checked. ''It's obvious when someone has an ax to grind and isn't filling out the form objectively,'' he said.
But those responses translate into pages of reliability data. ''We won't rank a model's reliability unless we get a minimum of 100 responses,'' Champion said.
Reliability data are not carried over from year to year. ''It's all fresh, every year,'' Champion said.
He also points out a few ways in which data are influenced by buyers. ''A Camry certainly is a reliable car,'' said Champion, ''but Camry owners also tend to be the type of car owners who maintain their cars well. On the other hand, a Ford Focus SVT is certain to be hammered by its owner and may not be cared for nearly as well.''
Sometimes, as in the case of the Ford Focus, a car the testers love to drive, the readers' reliability feedback keeps it from making the coveted ''recommended'' list that Consumer Reports has instituted in recent years.
Unlike the reliability data, the Consumer Reports tests can be compared from year to year because conditions are controlled. Trucks and SUVs climb the same ''rock hills'' because a dirt course would deteriorate with time, use, and weather. Tires and handling are tested on the same pavement. ''We have an expert in asphalt test the coefficient of friction periodically and repave as necessary,'' said Champion. And the cross-country course can be muddied up so all vehicles experience the same bumps and mudpits.
Vehicles go over the same city-country driving route with its built-in stops for simulated traffic lights, and creeping along other sectors to simulate heavy traffic. Missing, however, is a coffee shop where the vehicle is left running out front.
One trend is obvious: Cars are getting better all the time.
''As they get better, the number of problems reported is reduced,'' said Champion. He noted the BMW 3-Series as a vehicle that fell off the magazine's recommended list, not because it got worse, but because ''It stayed the same while others improved.''
No review caused a bigger fuss than the magazine's 1988 special report citing the Suzuki Samurai as unsafe because it represented a rollover hazard. That lawsuit was reinstated in 2002 so the original vehicles remain on the Consumer Reports facility's grounds as possible evidence - should anyone care to push 15-year-old vehicles to the rollover limit.
However, the Isuzu Troopers involved in a similar suit (Consumer Reports was cited for misleading information but not for liability damages) were donated to a technical college.
The staff's relationship with manufacturers isn't always contentious. ''Sometimes we get to drive a prototype,'' said Champion, ''but by the time a model gets that far, it's too late to make major changes. But sometimes we see the earlier clay versions as we did with the Cadillac CTS and Saturn Ion.'' And most, if not all, manufacturers have been to the test site to witness their cars going through their paces.
What happens to those 50-odd cars that Consumer Reports buys every year? The data about the staff's buying experiences - 14 different staffers buy cars from dealerships all over the Northeast - go into the Consumer Reports guides to buying a vehicle. The cars themselves are sold after being tested.
''We sell them as used cars, six- to eight-months-old, at 30 percent off the price we paid,'' said Champion. Who buys them? ''Employees, friends of employees, walk-ins,'' he said. ''The few we can't sell we trade for the next year's model of the same brand.''
Of course, not every job is perfect.
There were a lot of snow-removal days this winter, good for testing all-weather and snow tires. But a lot of the regular testing was crammed into days when the track was clear and weather favorable.
And sometimes the Consumer Reports staff has to work the night shift. ''We try to pick a moonless night to test headlights,'' said Champion of compiling the data that went into this month's story on the difference in the common halogen headlights and the newer HID, or high-intensity discharge, bulbs.
Even the best jobs aren't perfect.
Bill Griffith can be reached at griffith@globe.com.
This story ran on page F1 of the Boston Globe on 4/26/2003.
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