AutoGuide’s 1st Annual Lemon List

[ImUrOBGYN]

"Colloquially known as “lemons,” these are vehicles with serious reliability concerns, either relating to one major issue, or a longer list of less severe problems.

 

For the sake of clarity, this study is intended to be a report of consumer sentiment, rather than an outright list of actual lemons. The information gathered is provided by users in conversations with other members across the AutoGuide Group’s 500-plus forums. Using proprietary software designed to hone in on keywords and sentiment, the data is collected and then further sorted to determine legitimate complaints."

 

http://tinyurl.com/hmwofcr

[El Karacho1647545492]

Full disclosure: I sell FIAT and Alfa Romeo for a living.

 

You'd be amazed at how many people misunderstand the meaning of "lemon". Asking users to self-declare cars as lemons, whether or not they were bought back under lemon law, is laughable.

 

I refuse to believe Porsche is so far down the list. They have been among the top quality vehicles produced for a while now.

 

EDIT: After more digging, AutoGuide's parent company VerticalScope is also the parent company of TTAC. Credibility = 0

[Geeto67]

 

You'd be amazed at how many people misunderstand the meaning of "lemon".

 

what's to mis-understand? Lemon is a colloquialism for an unreliable car. It lent its name to the law, not the other way around.

 

I would take more issue with the words "legitimate" and "complaint" than I would with lemon. Legitimate as determined by who? and complaint as in formal complaint filed to an automaker or someone bitching on an internet forum?

 

You don't need the car to have been bought back under the lemon law to be considered an unreliable "lemon".

 

 

If the italians want to change their perception that their machines are unreliable, maybe they should stop allowing employee drinking during the siesta breaks.

[El Karacho1647545492]

what's to mis-understand? Lemon is a colloquialism for an unreliable car. It lent its name to the law, not the other way around.

 

I would take more issue with the words "legitimate" and "complaint" than I would with lemon. Legitimate as determined by who? and complaint as in formal complaint filed to an automaker or someone bitching on an internet forum?

 

You don't need the car to have been bought back under the lemon law to be considered an unreliable "lemon".

 

 

If the italians want to change their perception that their machines are unreliable, maybe they should stop allowing employee drinking during the siesta breaks.

 

Now I know what my parents felt like when I was 13 years old thinking I was the shit and they would respond with "you know what I mean" when I'd argue about the etymology of the word "be" and how it would affect my understanding of the phrase "be home by 12".

[craig71188]

A few excerpts from their "methodology":

 

"23 out of 43 brands monitored appear on the list and brands with zero reported lemons are not included on the list"

 

So...if no one has a complaint, you are disqualified???

 

“By normalizing the data based on overall vehicle production statistics, we believe we’re giving more reliable statistics,” says Colum Wood, VP of Content at Verticlascope Inc. “This formula helps to give some real-world relevance to the numbers and makes sure that higher volume brands, which are statistically more likely to have more reported lemons, aren’t penalized"

 

But..."Ram" is a brand separate than Chrysler, but Chevy and Ford trucks are not separate from the car brands? Or are they the ones that had no complaints and as such don't appear???

 

"Less critical are the actual numbers, and more important is the ranking"

 

Or, figures don't lie, but liars figure - our results reflect what we want you to see.

 

More mental masturbation to make owners of Toyotas and Hondas feel good about their (mostly) soul less cars...bet there's some rousing debates over the excitement of driving a Camry vs. an Accord on their sites!!:woowoo:

[El Karacho1647545492]

A few excerpts from their "methodology":

 

"23 out of 43 brands monitored appear on the list and brands with zero reported lemons are not included on the list"

 

So...if no one has a complaint, you are disqualified???

 

“By normalizing the data based on overall vehicle production statistics, we believe we’re giving more reliable statistics,” says Colum Wood, VP of Content at Verticlascope Inc. “This formula helps to give some real-world relevance to the numbers and makes sure that higher volume brands, which are statistically more likely to have more reported lemons, aren’t penalized"

 

But..."Ram" is a brand separate than Chrysler, but Chevy and Ford trucks are not separate from the car brands? Or are they the ones that had no complaints and as such don't appear???

 

"Less critical are the actual numbers, and more important is the ranking"

 

Or, figures don't lie, but liars figure - our results reflect what we want you to see.

 

More mental masturbation to make owners of Toyotas and Hondas feel good about their (mostly) soul less cars...bet there's some rousing debates over the excitement of driving a Camry vs. an Accord on their sites!!:woowoo:

 

Clearly MINI, Land Rover, and Jaguar are the most reliable cars on the planet because they had 0 reported instances of lemons :lolguy::lolguy::lolguy:

[Geeto67]

the problem with any kind of "lemon" report is that it is almost impossible to report or get access to any real statistics.

 

"Lemon Laws" are usually civil matters at the state level. So there is no central reporting collecting data on cases regarding lemon law cars and whether they are successful or not except the lawyers who are looking to promote their services. Furthermore a dealer can decide to replace the car under state lemon laws without a lawsuit at which point the only people who are aware of the "lemon" are the dealer, the recipient, and the manufacturer. which brings me to my next point....

 

...The manufacturer is in the best position to be collecting data on it's own cars that it replaces under state lemon laws regardless of suit or not. However almost all mfgs consider this proprietary business info and would never release this, esp if it meant it would be used to compare them to other automakers. Same goes for complaints regarding cars that are defective but are not replaced under lemon laws, why would the mfg share that info publicly.

 

To further compound this all states lemon laws are different. Some protect consumers of used cars, some do not. There is no federal oversight of this because it is largely a state matter, so no data collected. The definition of a Lemon in colloqualisim is different from the law anyway so even if there was it would have to do two functions: 1) collect data about cars replaced under lemon laws, and 2) collect complaint info regarding unreliable cars. The NHTSA kind of sort of used to be perceived of as doing this but it turns out they really weren't setup to do it so their numbers are garbage.

 

That just leaves consumer groups, journalists, and watchdogs like the BBB or TTAC, each with their own agenda for the information and able to skew their data collection any way that fits their ends.

 

All this leads to the TL/DR conclusion that: the best you are going to get on "lemon" statistics are consumer perception from surveys, and while they still have some value it is not as much as hard numbers of the cars actually replaced under lemon laws. Unfortunately that is all you are ever going to get.

 

 

Honestly, you don't need a survey to find out people think italian and british cars are unreliable. Just go down to your local cars and coffee and ask the first guy with a car logo on his t-shirt his opinion and you'll get it, whether he owned one of the cars in question or not.

[Orion]

I guess my Audi must be bulletproof. No one has EVER had issues with an Audi.

[Jewtoys]

Clearly MINI, Land Rover, and Jaguar are the most reliable cars on the planet because they had 0 reported instances of lemons :lolguy::lolguy::lolguy:

 

In my case a Range Rover is more reliable than my Abarth, and the Range is a complete pile of dog shit.

 

Fiat got me once with a shitty car, and even worse service, I would have a 4c if it wasn't for the way things have gone done owning my Fiat.

 

 

Edit: If you look at dealer stock in the Texas area, a boat load of the Fiats have lemon branding on the car fax.

[El Karacho1647545492]

In my case a Range Rover is more reliable than my Abarth, and the Range is a complete pile of dog shit.

 

Fiat got me once with a shitty car, and even worse service, I would have a 4c if it wasn't for the way things have gone done owning my Fiat.

 

 

Edit: If you look at dealer stock in the Texas area, a boat load of the Fiats have lemon branding on the car fax.

 

Wouldn't surprise me if the Texas market was gamed a bit. The Austin store pulls all kinds of shenanigans that wouldn't fly with any other brand.

 

That said, you're spot on with FIAT service. So many dealer groups didn't dedicate good techs to the brand and as a result, a lot of people got subpar service. It drives me up a wall when I see our tech fixing other tech's mistakes. We have probably one of the top ten if not top 5 FIAT/Alfa techs in the country at our store. I wish everyone had dedicated guys like him, the brand would be doing so much better. Sadly, we're stuck with a bunch of uninterested salespeople, uninterested techs, and uninterested dealer principles that blame everything on corporate. IMO it comes down to the stores themselves underperforming.

[Jewtoys]

Wouldn't surprise me if the Texas market was gamed a bit. The Austin store pulls all kinds of shenanigans that wouldn't fly with any other brand.

 

That said, you're spot on with FIAT service. So many dealer groups didn't dedicate good techs to the brand and as a result, a lot of people got subpar service. It drives me up a wall when I see our tech fixing other tech's mistakes. We have probably one of the top ten if not top 5 FIAT/Alfa techs in the country at our store. I wish everyone had dedicated guys like him, the brand would be doing so much better. Sadly, we're stuck with a bunch of uninterested salespeople, uninterested techs, and uninterested dealer principles that blame everything on corporate. IMO it comes down to the stores themselves underperforming.

 

 

Yep.

 

The last time I got my Abarth back from warranty work, they had it for a week, and claimed they repaired everything.... They literally didn't touch it. Still puking oil in the same spot, you could tell they never were in the area, as all the bolts were still soaked in oil, and the same built up crud from oil sticking to it... Side skirt still hanging off the car, etc..

 

The best is they diagnosed the car last year with the throw out bearing being bad, all the symptoms of it, I knew that before taking it in. They failed to book me for service in their system twice, how they do that twice, I have no idea.

 

The last time they claim the throw out bearing is fine, and they will not replace it.... Worst ownership experience.

[El Karacho1647545492]

Yep.

 

The last time I got my Abarth back from warranty work, they had it for a week, and claimed they repaired everything.... They literally didn't touch it. Still puking oil in the same spot, you could tell they never were in the area, as all the bolts were still soaked in oil, and the same built up crud from oil sticking to it... Side skirt still hanging off the car, etc..

 

The best is they diagnosed the car last year with the throw out bearing being bad, all the symptoms of it, I knew that before taking it in. They failed to book me for service in their system twice, how they do that twice, I have no idea.

 

The last time they claim the throw out bearing is fine, and they will not replace it.... Worst ownership experience.

 

Which store? Stateline? Benson?

[Jewtoys]

Which store? Stateline? Benson?

 

Stateline

 

 

Many more issues from that shithole.

 

They have one service writer, and like one tech that can do anything past oil changes. Nothing but lies comes out of that place.

 

Car has also been using coolant, and they claimed the level wasn't low, couldn't find a leak either... The best part, they added coolant, and the wrong type at that, pure scum.

 

Also replaced one piece of trim, completely ripped the rubber weather stripping taking it apart, and left a long scratch from a screwdriver slipping. They didn't say a word till I noticed as I picked the car up, the owner claimed he would have it fixed.. Can't get a single call back from them in two months, and neither could corporate over all the shit that place has put me through. It current has a list of 10 different things wrong with it, taking it to another location. HATE the car.

[El Karacho1647545492]

Stateline

 

 

Many more issues from that shithole.

 

They have one service writer, and like one tech that can do anything past oil changes. Nothing but lies comes out of that place.

 

Car has also been using coolant, and they claimed the level wasn't low, couldn't find a leak either... The best part, they added coolant, and the wrong type at that, pure scum.

 

Also replaced one piece of trim, completely ripped the rubber weather stripping taking it apart, and left a long scratch from a screwdriver slipping. They didn't say a word till I noticed as I picked the car up, the owner claimed he would have it fixed.. Can't get a single call back from them in two months, and neither could corporate over all the shit that place has put me through. It current has a list of 10 different things wrong with it, taking it to another location. HATE the car.

 

If you ever limp it out to Ohio, whether on a trailer or on its own power, let me know. As I said before, our service dept is top notch and I'll make sure they get your car sorted out properly.