BITOG Vehicle Owner Satisfaction Poll/Survey?

Status
Not open for further replies.

OVERKILL

$100 Site Donor 2021
Joined
Apr 28, 2008
Messages
57,912
Location
Ontario, Canada
Not sure how well it would work within the confines of the forum software but it would be interesting to have a BITOG-based owner satisfaction survey that would distill out general pluses and minuses of vehicles and give an overview of a given brand. I think we'd cap it at 2000 or newer vehicles and would have a scale of 1-10 for both positive feedback, negative feedback and the severity of repairs and issues.

This wouldn't be a one time thing, but rather a live dataset representative of current BITOG ownership where input would be limited to registered members with a minimum post count (like 100 posts) to prevent perverting the data by bots and trolls.

It would kind of be like the data generated by Consumer Reports but with a database consisting of information provided by more car savvy people that won't report accidentally using the paddle shifters as a transmission problem for example.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Unfortunately it would quickly diverge into a brand hating exercise.
See several recent threads for evidence.

And Consumer Reports, while not perfect, does a much better job than any internet forum crowd sourced effort could possibly hope for.

Unless we all start with a good understanding of statistics and what qualifies as a robust data set with controls for personal or experiential bias, it would just be an unreliable mess.
 
I wish we could rate members like I have seen on a few other boards....

Makes it nice for newbies to see who is for real and who is just a stirrer or otherwise generally a negative member.
 
Originally Posted by OVERKILL
Not sure how well it would work within the confines of the forum software but it would be interesting to have a BITOG-based owner satisfaction survey that would distill out general pluses and minuses of vehicles and give an overview of a given brand. I think we'd cap it at 2000 or newer vehicles and would have a scale of 1-10 for both positive feedback, negative feedback and the severity of repairs and issues.

This wouldn't be a one time thing, but rather a live dataset representative of current BITOG ownership where input would be limited to registered members with a minimum post count (like 100 posts) to prevent perverting the data by bots and trolls.

It would kind of be like the data generated by Consumer Reports but with a database consisting of information provided by more car savvy people that won't report accidentally using the paddle shifters as a transmission problem for example.


You can't make an unbiased survey. I've read plenty of car reviews by regular people and they vary so much based on expectations. I've read negative reviews about Toyotas due to the time it took for an oil change at the dealer to glowing reviews for other vehicles because they didn't need to replace their front end suspension until after 100,000 miles.
 
Originally Posted by Imp4
Unfortunately it would quickly diverge into a brand hating exercise.
See several recent threads for evidence.


^^^ This, ^^^
 
People use confirmation bias in all manner of things. Owners of Nissan's, for example, invariably will rate their vehicles highly etc etc...It is the nature of the beast. Long term vehicle data seems to represent some brands as being better than others and short term complaint data will demonstrate another measure. What isn't addressed is what personality any individual has in choosing a vehicle. It may not be that some brands last longer, it may be the demographic that purchases said vehicle keeps the vehicle longer by choice and follows maintenance protocols to achieve the objective. Another demographic may change vehicles like socks and abuse what they have severely. hard to quantify. I see the commercial all the time that there are more Ram pickups still operating after 20 years than any other brand based on registrations.
 
I see it failing, for all the reasons mentioned.

Plus I am OFFENDED by your cutoff date of 2000. I think I'll go poop in some FCA threads as result.
lol.gif
 
Originally Posted by Imp4
Unfortunately it would quickly diverge into a brand hating exercise.
See several recent threads for evidence.

And Consumer Reports, while not perfect, does a much better job than any internet forum crowd sourced effort could possibly hope for.

Unless we all start with a good understanding of statistics and what qualifies as a robust data set with controls for personal or experiential bias, it would just be an unreliable mess.


Well that was basically the idea, to have accountable data based on real experience versus 2 or 3 guys that make the effort to troll every thread for a specific brand or model that they've never owned. The data out is only as good as the data in and if somebody can't figure out they have paddle shifters and how they work I wouldn't want them reviewing a vehicle that has them, but that's well represented on the "Car Complaints" site for example. I'd like to think that the feedback from actual owners on here would generate what amounts to reasonably valuable data, at least for the discussions that take place here.
 
People have their own preference and there is nothing wrong with that. For some, reliability is everything. For others, it's not.
My favorite car I ever owned was a VW GTI. It was also the least reliable vehicle I ever owned. But what matters is that I liked it.
The car was the right choice for me but I can see why it would be a bad choice for others.
 
Originally Posted by maxdustington
Originally Posted by supton
Plus I am OFFENDED by your cutoff date of 2000.
+1 OVERKILL is also biased towards SBFs.
shocked2.gif



I do have a fondness for the SBF, but I'm basically cutting myself off with that, as the newest 302-ported Ford I owned was a 1989
lol.gif
 
Owner satisfaction has little to do with mechanical reliability these days. People's major complaint is that their infotainment system won't pair with their phone, or the menu structure sucks.
 
I like the idea, but I can see how it will quickly escalate to a brand bashing tag team event in short order.
 
Originally Posted by demarpaint
I like the idea, but I can see how it will quickly escalate to a brand bashing tag team event in short order.


It shouldn't though. Basic questions like on a scale from 1 to 10 how happy are you with your vehicle. During your ownership have you had to perform any major repairs? If so, qualify the severity of the repair from 1 to 10 and please note in the space what the repair was. During your ownership have you had any minor issues? Qualify the annoyance caused by these issues from 1 to 10 and provide a brief description.

The idea would to be to use some very neutral questions to generate a dataset that would be very hard to convey bias but at the same time would give a brief synopsis of what the actual issue experienced was rather than just "transmission problem" you'd have "vehicle shifted hard. TCM was reprogrammed" sort of thing, which is the calibre of content I'd expect from folks on here.
 
Well I think I can go to the Library and find all that info I need in Consumer Reports. I think from following BITOG as long as I have there is too much biased information here.
 
Originally Posted by JohnnyJohnson
Well I think I can go to the Library and find all that info I need in Consumer Reports. I think from following BITOG as long as I have there is too much biased information here.


And if you are happy with information gathered from people that may not understand the function of paddle shifters and input a transmission complaint because of it; happy with information gathered from people that by and large don't know jack about cars, that's fine. My intention here is to garner interest in the possibility of gathering more specific, but hopefully unbiased data from a demographic that is more enthusiast-oriented and can highlight key problem points beyond "engine issues" or "transmission issues" and the like.
 
Originally Posted by OVERKILL
Originally Posted by JohnnyJohnson
Well I think I can go to the Library and find all that info I need in Consumer Reports. I think from following BITOG as long as I have there is too much biased information here.


And if you are happy with information gathered from people that may not understand the function of paddle shifters and input a transmission complaint because of it; happy with information gathered from people that by and large don't know jack about cars, that's fine. My intention here is to garner interest in the possibility of gathering more specific, but hopefully unbiased data from a demographic that is more enthusiast-oriented and can highlight key problem points beyond "engine issues" or "transmission issues" and the like.


Salient response.
I'm a bit of a car guy but even that is all over the board on how 'we' describe ourselves and ' compared to who? '
smile.gif

Things I'm not 100% clear about are items I have no problem reading up on or asking questions and forums like this can be very helpful. Because of that, I'm not the guy that will give detailed analysis on paddle shifters nor complain about them because I rarely use them and "Am I using them right? "
That would be an unfair evaluation or simply skew data others consider valuable or take at face value. I'm not a tech guy either so I'll bump along until I figure out how to mate the phone and use the easiest of access and features. Me rating infotain and things of that sort would be in the same category.
Besides my goodwill of knowing I'd be misleading others, I'd stand the biggest chance of being caught as a simpleton about such things and that's incentive enough for me to behave.
I'm absolutely misleading already about the car guy thing in the context of anything beyond a '68 Bug , '74 CJ or maybe something more modern like an '82 Dodge Club cab.

There are plenty of good resources to search when you have things filtered down to year make and model of what one considers shopping or buying. Owner reviews, projects or mods is plentiful on car specific sites. TBS, recall etc....tons of good info and many avoid buying something that had a recent change or is a new platform until it proves itself some. Edmunds and Truecar offer reviews and pricing guides, it's just limited by the time frame you have or want to put in for research before pulling the trigger.
 
Last edited:
I think it would be interesting, but part of the reason why there are so many vehicle brands and offerings is the variety of buyers and what they want. Nobody buys a Jeep Wrangler for example expecting it to be economical. I love mine, but it is not a daily driver for a reason. I own a BMW because of the way it drives and the fun I have with it. I spend a considerable amount of time behind the wheel (2 hours minimum a day) so I want something engaging. For the X cost over a simple econobox it's worth it to me, but likely won't be for the many buyers that want something that simply gets them from A to B reliably and cheaply.

One thing the automakers are having a hard time with (and have been for years) is you can't make a vehicle that does everything exceptionally well. It can't be reliable, while also being able to tow/haul, provide great driving dynamics, and get 60 mpg. There are trade offs, and attempting to make vehicles that do everything result in cars that do many of those things but only adequately. Toyota for example is known as a very reliable brand, but part of that is because they have very old but proven technology, which the trade offs are things like a full-size truck that gets 10 mpg.
 
Originally Posted by tundraotto
I wish we could rate members like I have seen on a few other boards....

Makes it nice for newbies to see who is for real and who is just a stirrer or otherwise generally a negative member.

I've seen that on some sites and after a while, I realize it has serious flaws. What happens way too often is some members end up with a bunch of folks that basically worship everything they post. They 'thank' them for the most innocuous posts. Now, if someone gives a detailed, accurate explanation of something, that should warrant a 'thank', but I've seen reponses like "I think you're right" also get thanked by those followers. I just want to hand out tissues so they can wipe the brown stuff off of their noses....
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top