Och

iTrader: (3)

Still a lot of money, and even at 38k there is some steep competition out there. It's a lot more expensive than the outgoing model, which was very plain and cheaply built, and mostly sold to fleets.

mmarshall

Impalas can be had for substantially less than that if you avoid the top-level trims.....though, for me, the V6 (as I stated in my review) would be a must. I don't believe that any car in this class (even a hybrid) should come with a four.

mmarshall

A lot of that pork in new GM cars (including the Buicks that are Opel-based) goes to a stiff body-structure and effective sound-insulation, which makes for refinement and a quiet ride. Take the opposite, for instance....Honda, which has been known many years for stellar fuel-economy, but at least partly achieves that at the expense of road noise and inadequate insulation. Given the new Impala's relaxing and refined driving-manners combined with good handling (an unusual combination outside of Mercedes and BMW), which, IMO, make it a pleasure to drive, I'd gladly lose a couple of MPG in the weight over some of the competition.....though, of course, the new Impala' reliability is not yet proved. It could (?) turn out to have some teething problems in the first year or two.

pbm317

I don't see Consumer Reports as a great analyst of vehicles. Maybe some quality, but not in terms of what the pulse of the buying public would like. Consumer Reports also LOVES the Ridgeline, and craps on the Toyota Tacoma. Look at sales though. Tacoma runs over the Ridgeline.

LexBob2

In their latest report they rate the Tundra over the F150, Ram 1500 etc. and those trucks outsell the Tundra big time. These ratings change as new models come and go and improvements are made.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

CR has a woody for toyota and honda - mostly deserved, but they're far from objective. and their testing methods are a joke and 'surveys' based on basically a TINY (or statistically insigificant) sample especially for certain models. and if you sample among 'sensible' CR readers, of course the boring sensible cars are going to come out on top.

Tantrix

great looking car. I have yet to see them on the southern cali streets.

most of the asian imports like sonata, camry, accord, lexus GS, ES, altima, kia, genesis are all starting to look alike.

I love how the domestics are starting to look better and more unique than their cookie cutter counterparts.

SteVTEC

Everybody on auto forums always loves to make these nonsensical rants against CR, but I've not seen one such person ever mention a more credible source. Care to offer one? Even the Big Three have admitted publicly that CR's reliability data very closely correlates with their own internal data, so it's complete nonsense to imply that their surveys are inaccurate also. Do you actually subscribe to CR?

LeX2K

^^

Well said.

mmarshall

Being someone who reviews cars myself, I occasionally disagree with CR in minor points here and there. But, overall, I agree that it is one of the best sources available....especially for reliability data. In that manner, it operates quite differently from J.D. Power and similiar organizations.

(I myself, BTW, have been reading CR since the late 1960s, when I was still in high school)

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

J.d.power? At least it's based on real statistics not subscriber surveys.

How did cr rate your x5d or 335i?

I've got better things to do.

Outrage

Here's how J.D. Power's survey works:

Engine starts on fire: One problem
Can't figure out how to change the equalizer settings on the stereo: One problem
Catastrophic suspension failure: One problem
Trunk lid liner missing a screw: One problem
Total loss of steering control: One problem
Don't like the way the dash vents point: One problem

mmarshall

That is not just being facetious.....there is truth to it. Increasingly complex electronic controls are becoming a major problem on newer vehicles, leading to a number of accidents because of the distractions. Consumer Reports will also subtract points from a new car's scoring if they feel (as is the case with a growing number of cars today) that the controls are more complex than necessary. Good examples are the Ford/Lincoln MyTouch, Cadillac CUE, and the Audi MMI....though their view of BMW's I-Drive generally seems to be improving.

SteVTEC

Right.

You don't actually even subscribe to CR.
You don't even read their reviews.
You don't watch their video reviews, which are great.
You don't participate in their surveys.
You don't even know how the surveys work and are controlled so that they get accurate information.

This is typical of 99% of the CR bashers on the Internet, and unfortunately never seems to stop them from having such strong but spectacularly wrong opinions about them either. Oh well. Not my problem.

LeX2K

People that bash CR are often the ones that don't agree with the results of the surveys, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence.