Survey

The most known and respected survey in the automotive industry comes from Consumer Report. This yearly publication has issues on everything from cars to computers. Consumer Report is trusted by a consumer because it is unbiased, neutral and most of all accurate. Consumer Report gathers its data from a survey it sends out and people check it off accordingly on their vehicles reliability, fuel efficiency, and power, ECT. However Consumer Report is boring and cars should make you feel like a child who drank to much soda to wash down a pack of gummy worms. Cars should excite you.

So while Consumer Report may provide unbiased accurate information to a consumer it lacks what is really important. Consumer Report can tell you, yes the interior build quality is high but it will not tell you that the leather is soft and has intricate stitching or that the dash board flows into the center stack smoother than milk and honey. There is no emotion involved with the data. A reader will not feel as though they have learned how they would feel in the car.

Surveys are good for collecting data and remaining isolated from the subject. However some things are better off done with Qualitative research. Cars are one of those things. Instead of Consumer Report I prefer publications such as Inside Line or Car and Driver
, where they do in depth field-testing and analyses of cars in a way that resembles a focus group or participation observation.