TrueDelta (partially) shutting down?

[Quattro Pete]

I know the owner (Michael) is a member here and used to post in the past.

Below is an excerpt from his email:

Quote:
A big thank you to everyone who has helped with TrueDelta's Car Reliability Survey. We're proud of what we've accomplished together. Over the past twelve years we've helped countless people.

Unfortunately, maintaining traffic and revenue (on top of operating the site) has become far too much work for two people. So we've made the difficult decision that the July round of the quarterly survey, the 48th, will be the last for a while, and likely ever.

I suppose he couldn't make it a viable source of income, yet it was taking up too much of his time.

 

[gregk24]

Sorry to hear this. A great source.

 

[Andrew1972]

Some business models fail or people who implement just are not the right fit. Incredible data set and effort.

 

[Cujet]

I'm very sorry to hear this. The data presented there is often just the opposite of JD Power. It's real world reliability data, with information on the repairs involved.

TrueDelta was able to prove Toyota was the most reliable brand overall, and made the most reliable car (Camry) . They were also able to prove that some of VW's products were an order of magnitude worse (10x worse) than the Camry.

Unfortunately, now we will be back to the GM fanboi's touting just how much better GM products are, and the biased JD Power "data" that shows Porsche as a reliability leader. Facts will be displaced by emotion. Kind of fitting.....

 

[itguy08]

The "data" from TrueDelta always seemed dumb to me. Tracking number of repairs is a pretty meaningless statistic in that each repair is treated the same. So car A that went in for a sensor replacement was considered the same repair as car B that had it's transmission replaced. HUGE difference between the 2 repairs in reliability and even overall quality.

It's in the same vain as that other site that uses auction cars as a gauge of reliability. Very meaningless data points.

None of these sites are perfect as there's a lot of bias in human nature. The only ones that have the real scoop on reliability would be the manufacturers (warranty expenses) and warranty companies (costs of actual repairs).

 

[Cujet]

Originally Posted By: itguy08
Tracking number of repairs is a pretty meaningless statistic in that each repair is treated the same. So car A that went in for a sensor replacement was considered the same repair as car B that had it's transmission replaced. HUGE difference between the 2 repairs in reliability and even overall quality.



Incorrect, and far from meaningless. Simply click on "repair history" RIGHT UNDER "reliability".

TrueDelta did break it down by price and repair category in a very easy to understand format. Not surprisingly, cars that had far more "shop visits" also had a higher percentage of major repairs. It's not like VW or GM's high number of shop visits were for light bulb replacements.

The pie chart indicated the system (transmission, engine, suspension etc) , click on transmission and a pie chart breaks down the cost.

SIMPLE, EASY TO UNDERSTAND AND CHOCK-A-BLOCK FULL OF USEFUL DATA.


A quick look comparing models indicates what real world users can expect. Quite simply a Toyota Camry has fewer, less major AND less expensive repairs.

 

[itguy08]

Still not seeing how it's useful - I used this as an example: https://www.truedelta.com/Honda-Accord/expensive-problems-108

You've got brake jobs, shocks, alignments, etc in there mixed among the other stuff that are issues like failed engines, leaking transmissions, etc. It's also not presented in a useful format like "Average age of an engine failure, average age of a transmission failure, this model eats xxx sensor at yyy miles, etc.". Heck, it doesn't even appear to sort by mileage, which would be useful.

I'm not seeing how that is useful.

I'd also question the "shop visits" as an indicator of repair cost or even long term dependability. My Taurus had a fair # of shop visits early in it's life (knock sensor, transmission sensor, rear tail lights replaced 2x, and a few other things). Since the warranty ran out in 2012 it's only needed maintenance + tie rod ends. Possibly my experience is not typical but the # of shop visits early on was high but at 9 years/128k it's been quite reliable.

It's another data point for sure but I think the methodology needs a lot more work.

 

[Andrew1972]

I find the majority of owners out there which are the ones with few problems irrelevant to make don’t report or seek out outlets for frustration. Those reliability reporting by true delta still show at worst the majority of vehicles out there don’t have problems.