It may be safe to say Chevrolet has one of the most competitive lineups at present across the entire industry. From small, economic vehicles, to full-size SUVs and performance goodies, Chevrolet has nearly everything covered upon walking into a dealership.
Kelley Blue Book clearly realized this and bestowed Chevrolet with four 2016 Best Buy awards across its lineup. Chevrolet walked away with best performance car, best electric/hybrid car, best full-size car and best full-size SUV.
The 2016 C7 Corvette was the winner in the performance realm, narrowly beating out the 2016 Chevrolet Camaro equipped with the 3.6-liter LGX V6. KBB praised the 2016 C7 Corvette for its 6.2-liter LT1 V8 power, high driver engagement, comfort and overall value.
The 2016 Chevrolet Volt took home the crown for the electric-hybrid category. KBB points out the extended electric range without the anxiety, due to the 2016 Volt’s petrol-powered engine standing by as backup. The 2016 Volt was heralded for its greater driving abilities, weight loss and overall top-notch refinement.
The winner of the full-size car award went to the 2016 Chevrolet Impala. Despite not being the newest of kids on the block, KBB found a lot to love with the 2016 Impala. Specifically, the value proposition as the trim levels climbed. The amount of interior volume and trunk space of the money was a major deciding factor for the 2016 Impala.
And, finally, the full-size SUV winner was none other than the 2016 Chevrolet Tahoe. KBB recognizes when consumers step into this segment, they expect a near-luxurious experience, which it felt the 2016 Tahoe definitely offered. Wireless phone charging, the Chevy MyLink system and more were praised in a comfortable package ready for a road trip, or willing to run errands around town.
Comments
Interesting how one organization sees it one way and another differently.
Consumer Reports has the Tahoe and Corvette in their recently announced 20 least reliable vehicle list. However like KBB, CR has the Volt and Impala as two of its darlings. Don’t believe I’ve ever read any negative comment of consequence regarding the Impala. Rated highly almost everywhere and does extremely well in comparison tests.
This is why I complain about many of these list. Most people do not understand how information is collected and how distorted it can be.
I remember my teacher in Business statistics. He said anything can be stated the way you like it if you carefully craft how things are asked and how data is collected.
I would work on cars for years and often see the cars praised for being good in the shop and the ones cursed for being poor on the road for two decades with few issues.
The key to CR is that not just the owners report but only their readers report that own the cars. You can skew the numbers pretty well and upset the reality easily to the better or worse.
You want to know what goes wrong with cars get to know a mechanic or a parts man and they can tell you just what goes wrong with each and every car.
Note many mechanics often drive GM products. My buddy who worked for Hyundai drove a Chevy as he would never own what he worked on at that dealer even with a discount.
Scott,
As said before, no survey is completely scientific or error free. But CR’s subscriber base is quite large and would venture to say runs the gambit from the wealthy to not so wealthy being subscribers.
The 20 least reliable list contains autos from about every manufacturer so I don’t believe there is an inherent bias. I’m sure you will agree it is less than laudatory for the owners to report being disenchanted with their vehicles.
I really can’t accept your premise of talking to a mechanic. Most mechanics generally will work with a limited variety of vehicles unless they are mechanics in a specific dealership and then, they are only working with a limited amount of the total production run. At least CR’s survey has the advantage of 740,000 participants not a couple hundred-thousand at most that a mechanic may work on.
There are exceptions for everything. I have a buddy who works at a Chevy dealership and will only drive a Ford.
Martin I know who and what the CR subscribers are and generally they are people who have a hard time even learning how to use their cars today and they think of them as appliances.
They generally are very non car based in their understanding and most are short term ownerships that do not see how well these things hold up for the long run and over years with similar platforms.
There even many do not understand that their Acura is based on a cheaper Honda that they would detest.
As working on automotive products for years as well as knowing many in the industry they can tell you the good and bad of everything. You can accept the truth or you may reject it but that is the basic group that knows more about the good and bad than anyone.
Now if you think the CR readers are more informative go at it as we sit back and have a good laugh at your trust.
Cars for the most part change little over the years as the only major changes often come in platform changes. The ranking of a car high and low from year to year when it is built on the same platform and at the same plant with the same people and the same suppliers is sending you a strong message that your CR system has some major flaws. A small variance can be acceptable but from the top to the bottom and the bottom to the top is not even rational base on what evidence is listed.
CR is personal often Bias opinions from untrained people who for the most do not even crack open the owners manual and many do not even realize they have no spare in the trunk.
What CR does is much like the Jay Leno thing where they ask questions out on the street of general knowledge and many people have no clue of the topic.
Hell we get a lot of that even here.
Sorry the real world is just not that easy to opine accurately on things like this. Numbers with really little stability or credibility mean little and to pose them as meaningful is misleading.
Scott,
As contrasted to you and I and the majority of the folks on here, car purchasers are NOT ENTHUSIASTS! Other than reliability and practicality of the vehicle and probably secondarily looks, those are the driving forces for most folks for a vehicle purchase. With that being said, CR meets that need for information extremely well.
Most folks could care the less whether a Lexus is a gussied up Toyota or an Infiniti a Datsun, and yes could care the less an Acura is a Honda. Side little note, a lot of the current Acura owners are sure wishing the Acura was closer to the Honda. Acura is having various issues with the transmissions in the Acuras that are not shared with the Hondas.
The bottom line is that owners are not satisfied with their vehicles relative to their expectations–something they are entitled to regardless of their savvy or education. If you spend your money you are entitled to have your expectations met.
Sadly, GM as a whole has not been meeting the expectations of the buying public for some time and really needs to put effort to righting the ship. Most folks who leave a brand will not return should the replacement brand meet their expectations. GM is still fighting the battle of trying to regain many customers who walked because of crappy cars.
Cars that jaunt to 60 in 2.95 seconds or through the quarter mile in 11.6 seconds or generate 1.25 gs on a figure 8 course are not going to “pay the bills” for GM. They need to be producing vehicles the “non-educated fools”–“those that don’t read their manual” buy because they represent almost the entire car buying population. That is the REAL WORLD.
Years ago maybe thirty five or so C.R. rated the FWD Olsmobile Ciera as very unreliable and the Buick Century as very reliable. Now comes the odd part about tose comparisons, both cars were built on the same assembly line and same engines and transmissions. And the primary focus was on the drive train of each car line. How do I know? I worked at the GM assembly plant where they were built. So I’m not sure of how much truth you get from from those folks at C.R.
CR doesn’t rate their vehicles unreliable–the owners do. The reliability ratings are as reported by the owners.
CR makes recommendations, but pulls the recommendation if the vehicle is unreliable.
Out of the 20 most unreliable recently released, many are GM products, including the Tahoe, Corvette, ATS, Escalade, Colorado,Suburban and Yukon. Mercedes had a vehicle on there also–not a list I would be clamoring to get on!
Actually, JDPowers would be a much better list to go by when it comes to reliability rankings. JD actually surveys thousands of random people whereas CR only surveys their own subscribers and of course people who subscribe to CR tend to be those who have the need to complain about a product (that is why they usually joined – to voice a complaint). Plus those who are happy with their vehicles don’t always reply to consumer reports. Here is CR’s words:
“Consumer Reports surveys our magazine and website subscribers each year to ask about any serious problems they’ve had with their vehicles in the preceding 12 months.”
Whereas JD surveys thousands of random owners with no affiliation to JDPowers (unlike CR who only surveys people who already have a relationship with them).
Plus it depends on what a customer deems to be a “serious problem”. We had a customer who’s vehicle had a bulletin to check for wire chafing (only affected very few and it ended up theirs was fine) and they were so upset they had such an issue that they told us they were going to be voicing their opinion to CR. It was a precautionary procedure done during their regular oil change (so they didn’t even have to make a special trip in) and yet in their eyes, it was a very serious issue with their brand new vehicle. (Yet when we did a warranty history search on the Lexus SUV they traded in — which they bragged about being such a great vehicle — they had five warranty repairs during their 2 yrs of ownership)
dpach
Don’t know if you completely understand, as a CR survey participant, you have the option to send the survey back and report no issues which decreases the chance of a vehicle being termed unreliable.
CR also has the benefit of 740,000 responses which is probably far larger than J D Power’s survey sampling.
Disenchanted owners have every right to be hacked about a vehicle that doesn’t meet their expectations. Not every manufacturer or vehicle is so blessed to have their owners unhappy with performance, and those that don’t I would definitely like to know about.
I have completed my CR survey every year and truthfully reported my experience with my vehicles. On most of my vehicles I’ve reported little problems, but on those as my 2014 ATS Premium that listed for $20 shy of $55K I have been happy to voice my displeasure with delaminating windshields, replaced DIC units, faulty blind side alert mirrors, bad FOB/transmitters, and 6-7 recalls. Believe I have the right to be disenchanted? I think I do. Sadly I believe the reliability rating on the ATS has been poor and remained there since 2013. That is sad commentary.