Consumer Reports - 10 Least Reliable 3-rowers - Explorer take 2 of them

[Saffer]

Wow, the Ex got a beating yesterday from Consumer Reports.
http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2012/10/the-10-least-reliable-cars.html

V6 4WD the worst closely followed by the V6 2WD

Does anybody have more dirt on their findings ?

 

[dragonexplorer12]

Well this report is certainly disheartening. I hope that FORD will listen and take these reports to heart.

I still love our Explorer even though it is not perfect in every way. Be it the gaskets and plastics not being aligned or the burnt smell coming in the cabin during hard acceleration, the excellent ride comfort, improved fuel efficiency*, and aggressive appearance still make me a believer.

Again, this is to hoping and praying FORD will just accept the fact that there are problems to be rectified with the Explorer. It is how fast a company reacts to its problems and creates solutions that can help put itself back on its feet.

CHEERS FORD!

*Better than the previous model.

 

[Sgt1411]

My Ford Touch continues to effect the rating significantly.

 

[willyexpy]

First, I don't like Consumer Reports.

Second, the article rates it worst, but the chart says 100% different for 2011 and 2012. I took this chart into consideration when I bought the Ex (just part of a lot of research I did). So, some pencil pushing, desk jockey wrote an article and has no basis to do so.

Agree with me or not, it's like Car & Driver telling me what truck or SUV is best, they suck bad at it. They should stick with cars. Many of us don't want our truck to drive like a car.

I'm on the fence still but I don't feel the "quality" honestly in the Ex. I just want to it hold up for about one year at which time I will be replacing with a GX460.

 

[Flag Gibby]

It is all about reliability ratings and like sgt1411 said it is the center touch console(my touch) that is giving them such horrible ratings. I personally know 3 owners of the 2011/2012 models and 2 out of the 3 have had the touch unit replaced.

 

[Jrister24]

While my explorer has been in the shop for the Power Steering failure, I've driven a 2013 Ford Edge & a 2013 Ford Explorer (rentals). I have experienced some sort of issue in both the Edge & Explorer with the MFT system. Needless to say, I've also experienced major issues with my 2011 MFT.

I've basically got 2 choices. I can either go the dealership every time I have an issue and be a thorn in Ford's side, or I just deal with having to pull the fuse every few days to reset.

I have faith that Ford will get the system fixed and it will be a great system in future cars, but in the time being, I feel like we got the Windows Vista of software in our cars!

 

[13Sport]

Someone want to explain how the Explorer AWD V6 comes in at the least reliable, but the Explorer 2WD V6 comes in at the 5th least reliable? Especially when 4WD/AWD doesn't appear to have been any part of the criteria for the test?

Also.. there are 6 out of the 10 vehicles belonging to the Ford/Lincoln family, there's no way someone can say that the results aren't biased. Obviously I can't say that there aren't issues w/ MFT as I filed a lawsuit against Ford for it, but to put all of these vehicles on the top 10 LEAST reliable vehicle list is ridiculous. Other than MFT our 2011 Explorer was rock solid and the most comfortable, reliable ride we've had to date.

I think when you can say that 3 cars come between the reliability score of the AWD vs. the 2WD models in the same test that there is something very unreliable about the method for scoring the vehicles.

 

[13Sport]

Besides that, any organization that thinks that this is a good spokesperson to represent their brand, probably has issues with making judgement calls

 

[colintrax]

I would take that test with a grain of salt. I work at a grocery store and being a car guy I like to ask people what they drive and what they think of it. I've yet to have anyone complain about any year explorer, some people have complained about other vehicles (including fords) but not an explorer.

 

[tnt_12]

Folks, those rankings are based on subscriber surveys that Consumer Reports sends out. You enter in your make, model, etc then check off the areas of the car that you have had problems with. I sent mine in but only had one problem to check off. For FWD vs AWD it just means that the people with AWD reported more problems, the problems may not have been with the AWD system.

 

[13Sport]

Folks, those rankings are based on subscriber surveys that Consumer Reports sends out. You enter in your make, model, etc then check off the areas of the car that you have had problems with. I sent mine in but only had one problem to check off. For FWD vs AWD it just means that the people with AWD reported more problems, the problems may not have been with the AWD system.

Which makes the results based on an incomplete sample, and using no factual data. Awesome report! The fact that Ford has 6 vehicles in the top 10 "worst" vehicles could just be a side affect of Ford having a higher population of vehicles in the survey =P how ridiculous can a magazine be?

 

[Sgt1411]

besides that, any organization that thinks that this is a good spokesperson to represent their brand, probably has issues with making judgement calls

lmfao!!!!!

 

[tnt_12]

It's percentage based, problems reported per respondence. It's not a perfect measure but the cream comes to the top.

 

[walisas]

It means something for sure. Ford needs to improve the quality of car manufacturing. I have a factory defect that is not resolved yet.

 

[sgparnes]

Almost 30k miles on my '11 and really no problems. What I gleaned from CR was their dissatisfaction with MFT and Sync. It appeard Ford is addressing those issues and luckily we are able to do our own updates when they are available. However, why can't the useless calendar be linked to the smartphones like the phonebooks are? Again, I'm not a computer guy, but if MFT/Sync picks up and updates the phonebook it should be easy to update the calendar the same way and give us reminders.

 

[RandyH2]

The AWD 2011 would have slightly worse scores if I had submitted mine. I actually withheld my report because I didn't want to reinforce the horrible resale value problem.

 

[13Sport]

It's percentage based, problems reported per respondence. It's not a perfect measure but the cream comes to the top.

but if only two respondents return reviews for a jeep GC srt, and 2000 for a durango SRT, the chances of the jeep having a valid scoring is 0. What if in this survey 10,000 2wd models were surveyed, and only 500 4wd models were surveyed... if 10% of the people with the 4wd models responded negatively, that would only be 50 people.. it would require 1000 people to get the same score from the 2wd model. Likewise if there are only 20 4WD models surveyed and 20,000 2wd models, it is far more likely that you document a higher percentage of issues with the 2wd model.

It's not anywhere near a "cream comes to the top" scenario. If there are more explorers surveyed you will be able to document more issues in the study. You have to survey the exact same amount of every car, and it has to be a non-biased provable, repeatable study for the results to mean anything.

This is nothing more than a biased report which favors the manufacturers selling the least number of vehicles (therefor having less surveys to factor a score from)

 

[13Sport]

For a further explanation of why it is biased. I did not receive a survey. Why did I not receive a survey, because I haven't subscribed to consumer reports. Why have I not subscribed to consumer reports, because they release invalid data like this that can negatively impact a company without releasing all facts related to the report.

It might be good to know some demographic information about the subscribers surveyed. Are these subscribers ages 18 - 30, 30 - 50, 50 - 75? different demo's are known to treat vehicles differently which could lead to negative reviews, different demo's are known to be less technologically inclined leading to negative reviews, etc. Your sample population is also not random if it is only of your subscribers. What percentage of the subscribers are using the vehicle to tow, offroad, etc. What percentage of the subscribers have not performed regular maintenance on the vehicle, how many other variables can we add to show there is no controlled group in this survey?

If a vehicle exhibits two issues within the first month of owning the vehicle, and those issues are repaired with no return visits needing to be made, and the vehicle never has an issue again, this report would classify it the same as a vehicle that has been in for repair 10 times for two separate issues over the course of the first year. Would you give these two vehicles the same reliability scores?

There is nothing scientific about this report, and using it to make a purchasing decision would be near criminal. (this coming from someone who sued Ford in regards to the 2011 explorer)

 

[RandyH2]

but if only two respondents return reviews for a jeep GC srt, and 2000 for a durango SRT, the chances of the jeep having a valid scoring is 0. What if in this survey 10,000 2wd models were surveyed, and only 500 4wd models were surveyed... if 10% of the people with the 4wd models responded negatively, that would only be 50 people.. it would require 1000 people to get the same score from the 2wd model. Likewise if there are only 20 4WD models surveyed and 20,000 2wd models, it is far more likely that you document a higher percentage of issues with the 2wd model.

It's not anywhere near a "cream comes to the top" scenario. If there are more explorers surveyed you will be able to document more issues in the study. You have to survey the exact same amount of every car, and it has to be a non-biased provable, repeatable study for the results to mean anything.

This is nothing more than a biased report which favors the manufacturers selling the least number of vehicles (therefor having less surveys to factor a score from)

There are many errors in your argument- I'll leave the experts in statistics to explain them better than I am able to do.
There are questions of "statistical significance" which C.R. does not answer, specifically how many response are required for them to give a rating. Note that they do have vehicles with "insufficient data" listed.

The reason(s) for the decline of Ford are unknown to me. I would guess that the MFT deacle has a significant role in it, but perusing this forum will reveal numerous other issues as well. The problems are not limited to the Explorer line, either:
"Sixty percent of Ford-branded models and half of Lincolns were below average in predicted reliability"

Sixty percent is of the brand is not just a statistical error, it is confirmation that something is systemically wrong at Ford.

 

[13Sport]

Sixty percent is of the brand is not just a statistical error, it is confirmation that something is systemically wrong at Ford.

I am not saying that there aren't some issues w/ the explorer, but this survey has no statistical significance. Saying that you find many problems wrong with the car on these forums also has no statistical significance since the majority of people come to the forums to report problems or look for issues, you aren't including a large portion of the population that have no issues.

If you go to any vehicle specific forum you will find roughly the same number of issues that you can find about the explorer here, it's what forums were built for. If you don't control the population of a study, you can't use the study for any significant reporting, which is seen by the AWD and 2WD models being so significantly different in results, when they are largely the exact same cars w/ the exact same issues reported here. If you wanted to publish figures about least reliable cars you would have to have all sales figures, and compare them to serviceable and unserviceable issues reported by service departments and/or third party mechanics. This report has none of those things. It's also not a complete sample of the population driving the particular vehicles being studied, it's a biased population which subscribes to the service.

Also saying that there are many errors in my argument and then telling me you can't explain those errors is a BS response. Consumer Reports made an errant study w/ no basis and which has complete bias. It's unethical. I'm not even a proponent of Ford, I love my new Sport, but I would choose a number of other brands before relying on Ford.