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Can You Trust Those Awards You See in Auto Ads? (2010)

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Re: Can You Trust Those Awards You See in Auto Ads? (2010)

#31

Post by 542458 »

millzlane wrote: post #16

Honestly you can't trust a lot you see in ads. You can't even trust your manufacturer or the dealership selling the cars. Some brand new cars are sold with TSBs that haven't been fixed or addressed. I use https://www.carcomplaints.com/ when I'm shopping for a car to know which used cars to avoid.

I'm not sure I'd fully trust carcomplaints either, from my brief perusal of it. Many vehicles on the site show a large number of complaints for "Soy-Based Wiring Chewed by Rodents". But the idea that soy-based wiring is particularly appetizing to rodents is urban legend. Car owners have gone to court a few times, and AFAIK every time have lost for lack of evidence. Scientific studies have also failed to show any difference between rodents' tendencies to chew elastomer wiring and bioplastic wiring.

https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2018/07/03/toyota-win...

Rodents may very well chew bioplastic wires, but they also chew non-bioplastic wires. The fact that users on carcomplaints are convinced that this is a major issue with specific vehicles I think highlights the unreliable nature of self-reports.

Re: Can You Trust Those Awards You See in Auto Ads? (2010)

#32

Post by dylan604 »

everdrive wrote: post #20
millzlane wrote: post #16

Honestly you can't trust a lot you see in ads. You can't even trust your manufacturer or the dealership selling the cars. Some brand new cars are sold with TSBs that haven't been fixed or addressed. I use https://www.carcomplaints.com/ when I'm shopping for a car to know which used cars to avoid.

Often, the salespeople don’t actually know anything about the vehicles they’re selling either. I’ve had salespeople who don’t know the engine or transmission configurations of the cars on their lots. I spent a long many emails recently trying to explain to a Toyota sales rep how payload capacity works. Even after meeting him in person and explaining it to him again, I was totally unable to get the real payload number…

I love it when people go out of their way to try to make someone feel dumb. Why would you waste your time like that? You asked a question, and they responded in a way that doesn't answer the question. Do you think going through some sort of lecture is going to suddenly improve the answer?

That's like asking the average person to provide the answer to some differential calculus question but they don't know. You then give them a 5 minute dissertation on what differential calculus is, and immediately expect them to provide the answer by immediately asking them to solve the same equation.

Re: Can You Trust Those Awards You See in Auto Ads? (2010)

#33

Post by dylan604 »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #26
tomalpha wrote: post #9

I like to think some awards are less bad than others. See Autocar’s blog[1] about how they voted for the Car Of The Year award which they do every year. It seems to be reasonably transparent. [1] https://www.autocar.co.uk/opinion/new-cars/how-autocar-voted...

Be very careful with 'X of the Year' verbiage, especially at the end of the year. There are many publications that use this verbiage for awards, and stumbling upon them via Google or other means almost always results in biased and paid for opinions.

"Best movie of the year" quotes made in February are my favorite

Re: Can You Trust Those Awards You See in Auto Ads? (2010)

#34

Post by dylan604 »

amelius wrote: post #12
kimi wrote: post #2

Can you trust any "industry awards" at all?

Can you trust anything that appears in an ad?

Can we apply the rule of headlines to this comment, so any comment that ends in a question the answer is No?

From my experience working with ad agencies, on set during production of commercials, being in the edit bay, and just as a person with real world experience, the answer is not just no, but hell no.

Re: Can You Trust Those Awards You See in Auto Ads? (2010)

#35

Post by Clubber »

omneity wrote: post #23

I work on [0] and we routinely get engaged by tech publications asking if we'd like to be featured in their upcoming article "Best Monitoring Software for 2023" (for example). Some of them go as far as listing their prices for each position outright, or mention some bidding mechanism. And it's not your average obscure blogspam, no sir. There are household names in there as well. In fact I'm suspecting that outside of…

>In fact I'm suspecting that outside of a small minority of reporters with integrity

Having a boss and a mortgage usually trumps any integrity a journalist might have had.

Re: Can You Trust Those Awards You See in Auto Ads? (2010)

#37

Post by Clubber »

bell-cot wrote: post #15
3D30497420 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not familiar with the Ford Foundation or its work. However, from reading their Wikipedia article, I get the sense that they are pretty independent from the Ford company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Foundation Per Wikipedia: "Between 1955 and 1974, the foundation sold its Ford Motor Company holdings and now plays no role in the automobile company."

One-layer deeper question: How much power/influence do people closely tied to Ford Motor have at the Ford Foundation? Looking here - https://www.fordfoundation.org/about/board-of-trustees/ - only Henry Ford III is an obvious "Ford Motor / Ford family" member of their Board of Trustees. Behind the scenes and deeper? Hard to know. Bigger picture: Since CR has been doing at-scale quantitative ratings of cars for decades…

>Opinion: If I was running both Ford Motors and the Ford Foundation, I'd be telling CR that I wanted 100%-unvarnished-truth reviews and ratings of Ford Motors products from them. Because done-right data from CR would be a ~99%-independent check on what my underlings at Ford Motor were telling me. (And, yes, cheating in Ford's favor would be damn likely to turn into a disastrous scandal.)

Right, but you probably wouldn't want the bad stuff published.

Re: Can You Trust Those Awards You See in Auto Ads? (2010)

#38

Post by hnbad »

millzlane wrote: post #16

Honestly you can't trust a lot you see in ads. You can't even trust your manufacturer or the dealership selling the cars. Some brand new cars are sold with TSBs that haven't been fixed or addressed. I use https://www.carcomplaints.com/ when I'm shopping for a car to know which used cars to avoid.

My brother in law was in the market for a new notebook the other day and the one he ended up deciding on did come with a bunch of stickers suggesting it was "award winning" (although that luckily didn't factor into his decision). Upon closer inspection the only actual award was for the manufacturer's customer support. None were related to the model itself.

So I'd say, no, unless the award is a specific industry standard certification relevant to what you're looking for, awards mean nothing.

I'm also reminded of the movie poster that made the rounds recently showing a bunch of five star reviews as well as a single one star review conveniently placed in such a way that it looked like the poster art was obscuring the four missing stars so as to make it look like another five star review.

Re: Can You Trust Those Awards You See in Auto Ads? (2010)

#39

Post by ouid »

dylan604 wrote: post #32
everdrive wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often, the salespeople don’t actually know anything about the vehicles they’re selling either. I’ve had salespeople who don’t know the engine or transmission configurations of the cars on their lots. I spent a long many emails recently trying to explain to a Toyota sales rep how payload capacity works. Even after meeting him in person and explaining it to him again, I was totally unable to get the real payload number…

I love it when people go out of their way to try to make someone feel dumb. Why would you waste your time like that? You asked a question, and they responded in a way that doesn't answer the question. Do you think going through some sort of lecture is going to suddenly improve the answer? That's like asking the average person to provide the answer to some differential calculus question but they don't know. You then g…

[dead]

Re: Can You Trust Those Awards You See in Auto Ads? (2010)

#40

Post by Gr4phTh3ory »

dylan604 wrote: post #32
everdrive wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often, the salespeople don’t actually know anything about the vehicles they’re selling either. I’ve had salespeople who don’t know the engine or transmission configurations of the cars on their lots. I spent a long many emails recently trying to explain to a Toyota sales rep how payload capacity works. Even after meeting him in person and explaining it to him again, I was totally unable to get the real payload number…

I love it when people go out of their way to try to make someone feel dumb. Why would you waste your time like that? You asked a question, and they responded in a way that doesn't answer the question. Do you think going through some sort of lecture is going to suddenly improve the answer? That's like asking the average person to provide the answer to some differential calculus question but they don't know. You then g…

I don't see how anybody is going out of their way to make anybody feel dumb in that situation.

They explained their automotive needs to a salesperson at a Toyota dealership and gave them ample opportunity to do some basic research to make a sale of them. Payload capacity is hardly a topic as exotic differential calculus at a car dealership.

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