I bought the april 06 consumer report's for 06 and 07 cars/trucks...

The F-150 rides more comfortably, handels more nimbly, and has a quiter, better trimmed interior than the previous verson.

New features include moveable over head storage bins, a spring assisted tail gate, and a power-opening rear center panel.

The four wheel drive system is part time only, The powertrain is not as smooth as the toyota tundra or nissan Titan, but it deliverd reasonable acceleration and flue economy.

Braking performance was just adequate, with long stops in our tests. Reliability has dropped below average for the 2wd model, The 4wd model has remined below average..


0 to 60 mph 8.3 sec 2004 XLT crew cab 4wd 5.4
Brakes are worse than average, over all quality, worse than average...

Now, I am by no means accepting that consumer reports is God, I can write a better report on the F-150, booth the + and - But I do concur that my F-150 has under gone numerious trips to the Ford Doctors and I'm less than impressed with my 04, yes ride, performance, and handeling, Flue economy are excellant, but brakes, noisey engine and lousy carpert and seats sting ...

If My reg can had more room in the driver area, I would love this truck..

 

Bad carpet? I think Ford has the best carpet of all...chebbies look like 1970s disco rugs.

As for issues, I had to have some flange replaced on my tranny that was leaking on day one, and my truck has problems turning over from time to time. But other than that, no issues.

My dad has an 04 4x4 and hasnt ever had a single thing fixed under warranty 30k miles and a year later.

 

I bet Consumer Reports don't say anything about the Titan having problems with trannys and rear ends? I've read a few things talking about it, and I know somebody with a Titan thats less than a year old and already had the tranny and rear replaced. F a Titan and F Consumer Reports

 

Consumer Reports is a non-bias publication that does not have to worry about selling (bribing) advertisement space to companies that they report on. They may not be perfect but it is the best thing we have as a consumer. Much of their ratings come from us, the subscribers. I don't use them 100% of the time but I do use them and so do many other people. I would say that the majority of the people that I work with uses it to an extent.

 

from what i understand a good portion of consumer reports data comes from actual car owners. while that may be good. i think it also may be bad. i think this is how japanese cars get such high ratings from cr. everybody that owns a honda or toyota says the thing is made buy gods and it never fails. that's their perception and that's what they tell cr when they ask them. "yah my car is the greatest vehicle to ever hit this earth".....the public picks up on that and everybody heaps praise after praise on honda and toyota. while the guy driving a chevy cavalier in topeka gets a call from cr and thinks about the public perception of american cars and says " yah my car has problems, this and this and this and this went wrong".... but think about it....how many people could actually provide good info about their drive train (or any other part of the car for that matter)? most don't even know what it is or what would make one good or what would make one bad. while i think its good to have an owners opinion, i also think its abunch of bull hockey.

take a look at the jd powers and associate ratings. they count instances of problems from the dealership. COUNTING of tangible instances of a transmission problem will give you a better indicator than what an old lady in oklahoma says about her transmission. if you look at JD powers ratings and you look at cs ratings, they don't match. the reason is one group asks opinions and the other counts instances of problems.

i would use each as a reference but don't use either as the gospel.

just my 2 cents - oaw

 

yes, consumer report's trashed the Titan, I don't have the buyers guide with me, whhen I'm home I can quote what they said, Titan reliability is less than average....only Dodge ram was rated as average...Best buy was the Honda ridge line...GMC/Chevy were rated less than average, slightly better than the F-150

 

That just goes to the show that the vast majority of the public are stupid.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

If I want to hear about a how good or bad a car is, I'll go out and drive the sumbitch myself. If it's something other than a Ford, I'll go talk to the guys that really know how well (or not) the durn car is built - the techs in the service department.

 

Consumer Reports is probably one of the best publications anyone could ever get unbiased and truthful information about anything they report on.

I had a subscription to Consumer Reports for about 5 years and every year I received a survey for feedback on a number of things including vehicles.

No, Nissian, Toyota and other foreign vehicle owners do not always give excellent reviews of their vehicles while those who own American vehicles give bad reviews. Sorry but statistically speaking that is just not possible, nor would common sense lead anyone to truly believe that.

If the F150 has a bad review, or any other brand for that matter, it is because statistically, by those who fill out the survey, think that vehicle has major problems worth reporting on.

If the F150 has the review it has it is because it was earned due to actual, truthful and unbiased information supplied by actual “real” owners. If a vehicle manufacture wants an excellent review in Consumer Reports then that vehicle manufacture will have to supply excellent vehicles to “real” owners.

Nobody can judge a vehicle by themselves. One vehicle will never tell the true story. Only through statistics, which involves thousands of owners, will anyone ever have a decent view or information on the overall “true” status of a product, including vehicles.

You can just about take any information from Consumer Reports as factual data that you will find NO where else. Like it or hate it, it is the truth…

 

Consumer reports is the worst publication to ever get anything close to the truth out of.

They have no idea what real world testing is about, and all of their methodology is flawed.

They are constantly getting in trouble for their flawed testing. The latest flap was the testing done on hybrids.

It's a magazine designed for the non thinking, brain dead consumer, that's too lazy to do a little research.

Just do a simple Google search to see the hundreds of flawed reports done by that magazine.

 

anyone with some sort of common sense would know C.R is a lie. I mean for example, they said the Honda Ridgeline is the best "truck" to get! That right there is enough to never pick up another C.R mag right there!

 

My apologizes I was not clear enough in my first post. I am not talking about any testing Consumer Reports may do themselves I was referring to the information they publish based on the surveys they do annually.

The surveys they publish annually in which real people, from the real world, who are actually conducting “real world testing” is the information I was referring to. When they rate reliability, quality, and other categories which are usually from a 1 – 5 or 1 – 10 it is information directly from “real world people”.

That information is true regardless if people accept it or not. There is no other publication I know of that gives the public that kind of “real and unbiased” information. It is from that information you will see Consumer Reports compare say the F150 to other trucks. When the F150 falls below or ranks less then other trucks it is not because Consumer Reports doesn’t like F150 but rather the thousands of owners who have actually experienced “real” problems in the “real” world.

That goes for any vehicle or product. While all surveys have flaws and are not perfect they are the best source available to give a very good idea or indication of how a product or vehicle will do, or may do, in the “real” world…

You really have to step away from manufactures hyped advertisement or other publications that take one vehicle for a day and then report biased information on it. Any publication that only test one or two of the same vehicle is nothing more then advertisement and not really assessing a product line because it is absolutely impossible to assess anything with such a very minute sample. Sampling must be done in very large quantities to give a half way decent trend level of outcomes.

Consumer Reports surveys are that sample that is large enough to provide a pretty good window into what to expect from a product or vehicle “overall”…

Again, don’t be upset with the thousands of responses from honest “real world” consumers when they don’t rate a particular product or vehicle the way you have been lead to believe it “should” be. Those who simply throw out conclusions from surveys but yet accept as fact what advertisement or a few of their friends say are people who are followers and unable to cope with reality.

 

I've never been able to figure out what, exactly, CR is comparing it to??? What, exactly, is AVERAGE handling? What, exactly, is 'average' reliability?

At least JD Powers tells you that, our average in this segment was XXX number of incidents, and this particular model had YYY number of incidents.

And anyone that compares an F-150 to a Ridgeline gets written off automatically.... truck of the year.... whatever. Just for that, I'm going to start a campaign to make the Ford Expedition Car of the Year!! I mean, it's got interior room, gets decent mileage, seats 7 comfortably, has a V-8, body on frame, can tow a lot more than any of the other'cars' they test.... why not??

-Joe

 

CR was absolutely right about both of my sons Jeep Grand Cherokees. Pieces of crap.

 

For some things, CR provides useful info to include in decision making. Their review of reliability of hard goods, like cars, laundry machines, etc. are helpful, and most of the time, their conclusions fit with stuff I've owned.

I don't find them to be terribly helpful when it comes to most types of technology. Their TV ratings sometimes are OK, but their reviews of computer and audio equipment are pretty worthless, maybe because so much of the use of that equipment is based on subjective preferences.

 

I drive an '04 reg. cab XLT and I would have to strongly disagree with everything ever written in a negative way about these trucks. I've got an
excellent truck thus far, performs EXCELLENT ( with the 4.6 and no re-flash )
brakes well, engine is quiet and smooth, probably it's only real flaw if I had
too be picky about it, would be the lame arssed tires ( generals ) that it came with. I took a friend of mine last weekend to a Dodge dealer where he bought himself a 4 door ( Daytona model Ram 1500 Hemi ) and the salesman was trying to sell me a reg. cab version of it. I told him I'd be giving up more than I'd be getting.
Didn't have the sliding rear glass, didn't have the bed mat or tonneau,
didn't have steps (though he said he'd put some ugly chrome ones on for me)
no 6 cd player, no keyless entry.... all it really has is the Hemi .... ???????
I told him " no thanks "