consumer reports? are they really reporting?

[bleacho]

i used to love getting consumer reports... is it just me that thinks this magazine, is not thorough, gloss over everything, and really give no advise at all? i remember as a kid pouring through this magazine, and finding great facts and direction give.. what has happened? is this just my feeling, have they too sold out.?
i find none of their vague recommendations useful at all..
any one else feel the same way.?

 

[decodriveboy]

I think....

their ratings are of no consequence anymore. CR is just another branch of corporate advertising disguised as information.

 

[toggleswitch]

I use it as a point of reference and to stay current with so many newer financial and physical products.

As far as the ratings go, you have a mind of your own, and it is there to be used.

Similarly you may now know more than the writers of such articles. Just like your kindergarten teacher may not look so bright to you now, and you have moved beyond the need for her, she was probably pretty impresive to you when your mind was smaller/younger/emptier.

 

[frigilux]

I agree CR has become less specific in their written explanations about products, but it would appear their testing methods are still valid---with the notable exception of the recent outsourced child car seat debacle. I miss the more detail-oriented appliance evaluations of the past. I suppose someone convinced them (in error, in my opinion) most people aren't interested in the details, just the bullet-rating charts.

Most products I purchase perform more or less as CR says they will. There are questions about reliability data, but as Toggle stated, you should use CR as a starting point when making purchasing decisions.

You can opt to go to read people's opinions at this and other appliance-oriented forums, but be prepared for wildly conflicting reports. By way of example, for each person who thinks Whirlpool makes a good frontloading washer, someone else opines they're crap.

You can also opt to heed the advice of the salesman at whatever store you plan to make your purchase. Many of us find them lacking in knowledge and ready to say anything---no matter how divorced from reality---to make a sale.

CR may be an imperfect product itself, but I still go to their ratings first when making purchasing decisions. Millions of others never look at CR and make fine purchasing choices on their own.

 

[andrewinorlando]

Toggles is absolutely right on his point that we do know more than most of their writers...I mean, look at us!! Most of us could do those jobs in our sleep, and do a far better, more thorough job.

 

[rp2813]

I gave up on CR for a couple of reasons. Main one was that back in late 1997 they rated Amana as the top washer. I bought mine based on that rating plus a good deal at Sears; the huge stainless tub was mesmerizing with its possibilities compared to the tiny tub on the center dial Maytag it was replacing. As it turned out, in the 9 years I owned that Amana machine it went through 4 belts that were not very simple to replace. To be fair, even a new Maytag would have seemed cheap compared to a solid center dial machine, but bottom line is that this Amana was anything but problem-free.

Then I wanted to look something up on line from a CR issue I no longer had in my posession. That's when I made the rude discovery that with CR it's an either/or situation. You either subscribe to the magazine or you subscribe to the on-line version, but a subscription to the magazine does not automatically get you access to the same thing on line. That's when I decided that CR was just too tight-ass of an organization and that their evaluations were flawed. They should never have rated the Amana washer #1 if they didn't have enough repair history on the machine. This sloppy reporting along with an additional charge to access the information on line that I was already paying to receive (it has to cost them vastly less to post their issues on line than publish and mail them) was enough to let me allow my subscription to lapse. So far I haven't missed them at all.

 

[petek]

I agree with Frigilux and think their tests are still valid but I only buy it intermittently anymore because the articles are too brief then you just have the ratings chart. Plus there's too much "other" stuff they never used to have or very often like retirement funds, insurance policies, what's the best bank, and too much "health" stuff. I liked it only for appliance and car reporting not all that other gunk.

 

[maytagbear]

They never used to have?

Pete, I love ya, buddy, but I have read copies of Consumer Reports from the late 1940s through mid 1950s at the university library, and they have always had articles on health, money and investments, and some years in the past, lots of information on home heating.

I am not pleased with the direction it has taken recently under Jim Guest, but some people hated Rhoda Karpatkin.

Seems to me that lately, they've been emphasizing electronic equipment too heavily. However, that's just my opinion.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[petek]

Oh yes, all that electronics stuff, printers, etc.. what's the point, by the time they print the magazine the printers and other gizmo gee whiz crap is out of date.

 

[alr2903]

PeteK U r So correct

I was thinking the same dam# thing, if CU continues to "rate" electronics they need to roll that out alot faster or maybe Just "online" the electronic consumers would be better served and are probably "on line" savy anyway. The magazine would be better served, with more frequent review of electronics on-line. The white goods, and maybe BASIC televisions at least 4 times a year. i have a feeling some subscribers that have bought CU for decades, really do not care about items that Should be in a publication devoted to electronics. Have you taken a 70 year old family member to buy a "simple" television lately?

 

[petek]

Maybe we're just looking at it thru aging eyes. When I was a kid, back in the 60's I use to love sitting there reading all their stuff on the latest receivers, Scott,Marantz,HK etc or the kitchen stuff, they did seem to go into more detail but then maybe they didn't and I'm just thinking they did? Unfortunatly I don't have any old issues.

 

[bingwsguy]

Toggleswitch

Steve, you really said it very well.

 

[pulsator]

My mom has an account for the website (I don't have a clue why,) anyway, I just use it for personal enjoyment. I've had experience with most of the machines they rate, and I think it's just funny how off they are on their ratings. If they explained why each rating was what it was, I might pay more attention, but they obviously don't have a clue!

 

[tomturbomatic]

The electronics of the present era are what household appliances were in the 50s and 60s, new, glamorous and still rolling out features instead of rolling over in their graves. It costs so much more to put the magazine together today for a readership that mostly wants to read as little as possible to get the scores. I don't think the staff are as interested in appliances anymore either. I remember the first article they did on birth control; many readers wrote huffy letters saying that they had dropped their subscriptions. I thought that the testing of that category of product had the potential to be the most fun of all. I hoped for the same type of endurance run results as for washers. Unfortunately it was more scholarly than "hands on ratings." A lot of the narrative of the features of individual brands & models of so many things can now be found on manufacturers' web sites. I guess we are experiencing nostalgia for a magazine that was chock full of information for those of us with the special interests, information that was available nowhere else and we could hold on to them and go back for a quick fix when we wanted. I was the same way about an issue of National Geographic in the 1950s with a big article about a family in New York with a home full of aquariums, terrariums, tropical fish, frogs, turtles and even a small caiman. The color pictures were beautiful and there my hobby was in a real magazine for the public, unlike Tropical Fish Hobbiest.

 

[danemodsandy]

No More CR For Me!

Compared with the CR I used to love and subscribe to, the new CR is "dumbed down" to the point that there IS no point anymore. There used to be some information about testing procedures, and there used to be material designed to increase awareness of useless features, environmental concerns (yes, even in the early '50s) and advertising drama. Today, the writing is about on a par with "Parade" Magazine, and the "cut-to-the-chase" Ratings are seldom informative enough for my taste. There seems to be little or no attention paid to durability any more; someone seems to think that having the latest "energy-saving" features overrides lasting quality- as if you should go out and cause the planet to be raped for some more iron ore and petrochemicals every two or three years just so you can have a machine that uses a bit less (and a bit colder) water than the one you already own.

My rating is Not Acceptable.

 

[rp2813]

It also seemed that CR used to be in love with certain manufacturers that did indeed turn out a high quality and durable product. They consistently ranked center dial Maytag washers at the top through most of the 70's, only once did Whirlpool beat out Maytag with top rated washer as I recall. Maytag wasn't as fortunate with their halo-from-hell dryers, however. They also consistently rated Sony TV's highest and had testimonials about people being able to get great reception with just rabbit ears. Those people must have lived across the street from the transmitter. I ended up buying a Sony TV for myself in 1977 based on all I had read in CR, and that was the first instance of CR's credibility eroding away for me. The contrast was so high on that set that any dark background was simply black with no definition. How they could rate that as good picture quality was beyond me but I did eventually get used to it. However the set did last forever, it became the household set when I had to move back home for a while and it was on almost all day every day until about midnight. It went with me when I moved out again and a few years ago started turning people pink with more and more frequency so I finally unloaded it after over 25 years of continuous service. CR got that part right, at least. It seems to me that unlike today's CR, the old CR used to give a lot more weight to durability and longevity than features and gadetry, as witnessed by their loyalty to the simple but indestructible center dials. When they rated my flimsy Amana shred-o-matic washer #1 I knew they had gotten their priorities skewed up and I agree with Sandy that durability and dependability seems to be entirely overlooked by them these days. Maybe it's unfair to blame CR for that, since durability and dependability are unfamiliar terms across the board in today's manufacturing world, it seems.

 

[roto204]

There is a difference

I was thumbing through some 1950s Consumer Reports over at Roger's the other day, and indeed, through some 1980s issues that I'd rescued. It's not your imagination; the articles have become much more concise, and the volumes of test setup and execution information that used to fill pages has been condensed to mere footnotes in the ratings section, if anything.

Perhaps it's a change to compliment our supposedly instant-gratification generation, but a large portion of the interesting information (what we, probably, deem interesting) has been omitted.

It could just be that they grew tired of reiterating the same thing. Or, perhaps, they think no one cares about the minutiae. Alternatively, maybe we wanted to know more back then about the aesthetics of driving a 1986 Oldsmobile Eighty Eight, or about the agitator design of a Magic Chef that made it so amazingly capable. Remember the ratings format in those days? Advantages, A,C,D,E,Q. Disadvantages: a,c,i,l,m. What was m? "Lint filter judged harder to clean than most." Read all about it underneath.

Maybe people just want to know what to buy now, and that's it. To a geek like me, that seems kind of shallow. After all, half the fun was in understanding why you'd care about the ratings in the first place...

 

[rp2813]

Nate, I think you have captured the reason behind why so many of us find CR just a bunch of superfluous blather anymore. They've sold out to the instant-gratification bunch, those same people who generally want to replace their pefectly good washer, mixer, TV, stereo, or car before they've even had a chance to fail. A very misguided adaptive move on CR's part, that is for sure.

 

[tolivac]

When I read the new CR magazines these days it reminds me of the old CG magazine-they tell you NOTHING and just make a list of products.In present issues CR is "apologizing" for the botched test and reports on the children car seats.At this point CR's magazine is just for laughs for me.We could do the test on appliances and even electronic goods better.