Opinions on Consumer Reports?

Admin

Admin

Administrator
Staff member
Ok, so I decided to subscribe to Consumer Reports and got the "free" Buying Guide for 2014. What scared the heck out of me was that in items I feel I have a pretty good idea on what is a good/bad product (cordless drills, chainsaws, snowthrowers), every single top ranked item was something that I would rank about as low as I could. So it made me wonder about all the other items that were listed. Not that I am going to use it as my only form of research when deciding on a purchase, but I could not believe what they ranked #1 for some things.

Anyone else feel the same way or other opinions on their rankings?

-John
 
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oktaneho

New member
Personally I think they are worthless. The problem is the data they get is based on consumers who may or may not know what they are doing. Say someone buys a new chainsaw, uses it once, and then lets it sit with gas in it for a year without using it. Then they go to start it and it won't fire because the carb is plugged up. They then report to CR that the chainsaw is unreliable and had to be repaired when it was only a year old. They blame the saw when in reality they are the problem. This skews the data that CR is then reporting.

Last year I was looking at cars. I already knew I wanted a 00-09 full-size GM car with the 3.8 V6 (Bonnevilles, Lesabre, Lucerne). It's well known as one of the best motors GM ever made. Lots of those cars running around with 200-300K miles on them and still going. I have a family member that gets CR so I looked at several years of the auto issues. I found it funny that different years of the same car had wildly different ratings. For example the 00-05 Lesabre was basically unchanged in those 6 years, but they would list one year as much better than the next year. But they were the same car, just different owners who didn't know there ars from a hole in the ground.
 
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Team Elkhorn

Guest
Administrator said:
Ok, so I decided to subscribe to Consumer Reports and got the "free" Buying Guide for 2014. What scared the heck out of me was that in items I feel I have a pretty good idea on what is a good/bad product (cordless drills, chainsaws, snowthrowers), every single top ranked item was something that I would rank about as low as I could. So it made me wonder about all the other items that were listed. Not that I am going to use it as my only form of research when deciding on a purchase, but I could not believe what they ranked #1 for some things.

Anyone else feel the same way or other opinions on their rankings?

-John
Click to expand...

Thats pretty much been my experience too. It almost seems you can see what item is most popular, to know what not to buy.
 
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dawolf

New member
Administrator said:
Ok, so I decided to subscribe to Consumer Reports and got the "free" Buying Guide for 2014. What scared the heck out of me was that in items I feel I have a pretty good idea on what is a good/bad product (cordless drills, chainsaws, snowthrowers), every single top ranked item was something that I would rank about as low as I could. So it made me wonder about all the other items that were listed. Not that I am going to use it as my only form of research when deciding on a purchase, but I could not believe what they ranked #1 for some things.

Anyone else feel the same way or other opinions on their rankings?

-John
Click to expand...

It's not a good resource in my opinion. We bought a TV and a dishwasher based on their high rankings and both were problematic purchases.
 
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snocrazy

Active member
I know my dad uses it as his purchase bible. Most recently he bought his wife and IPAD because consumer reports said it was best.
They bought the most expensive one out there. Could have purchased 4 non apple tablets. Made me sick.

I use his online login to check on things when making purchases as a reference. Not the only place I look for sure.

When items are REAL bad review wise. You know that item is prob not going to be your best bet.
 
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jmag

Member
i have subscribed for years and find it to be a useful tool in making purchases. i also use other tools such as personal experience, friends experience, web research etc. we have access to so much information nowadays, it is silly to not use it.
 
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frnash

Active member
Consumer Reports is certainly worth consulting, but I find it unremarkable at best. Even their "laboratory testing" is of only limited value. They typically test only a limited number of brands/models, only to have quite a number of their top rated ones "no longer on the market" Lotta help there, eh?
 
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russholio

Well-known member
I have used it and it can be a useful tool, but I wouldn't make any purchases based solely on what they say. It's just another piece of information to use to compare with other sources.
 
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Yooper_Bob

New member
I used to have a subscription, but dropped it several years back.

I find some of best places for finding consumer info is the reviews/feedback on purchasing sites such as Amazon etc.

I think you can gleam better info by seeing user ratings on stuff they actually purchased and used versus a generic rating service.

I think consumer reports has outlived its usefulness. Before the days of internet shopping and buyer feedback, it was one of the only ways to find out which products people were "supposedly" happy with. Now there are so many better (and free options) sources on the internet.
 
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russholio

Well-known member
Yooper_Bob said:
I used to have a subscription, but dropped it several years back.

I find some of best places for finding consumer info is the reviews/feedback on purchasing sites such as Amazon etc.

I think you can gleam better info by seeing user ratings on stuff they actually purchased and used versus a generic rating service.

I think consumer reports has outlived its usefulness. Before the days of internet shopping and buyer feedback, it was one of the only ways to find out which products people were "supposedly" happy with. Now there are so many better (and free options) sources on the internet.
Click to expand...

I agree. The only problem with that is, companies have been known to plant "posers" to give their products an artificially good rating, or to give other products a bad rating. Or peoople will give a bad rating to something for a stupid reason. Example: When we bought our front-loading washer, we checked CR as well as user ratings. Well, it seems as though some user gave it a bad rating because the chrome ring around the door showed fingerprints! Seriously? She didn't realize it had a chrome ring around the door before she bought it, and that it was an "issue" that had no bearing whatsoever on the functionality? That's why I think it's best to check multiple sources and compare, but read the reviews closely and be ready to take some with a grain of salt.
 
Admin

Admin

Administrator
Staff member
Thanks everyone!

It looks like my feelings were not out of line. I do have some sources for reviews on tools and electronics that I trust very much and for major appliances, I have found the reviews from the on-line sites to be useful too, as long as I be sure to read through most or all of the comments to "weed out the wackos". My first copy of CR just arrived in the mail today. Plan to read through it and the rest of my subscription for some potential tips.

-John
 
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