1. A. I found this on Honda newsgroup: "Several years ago in Consumer Reports they gave the motor in the GT Mustang a poor rating while the Lincoln Mark & Town Car got excellent ratings. This was back when all three used the same 5.0 Liter...I bought a 99 Mustang GT but before I did that I looked into consumer reports to see how they rated it. Not well at all, something like poor. This was before I bought it and before it came out on most lots. So tell me, how can they give a realibility rating to a brand new car?..." <br><br>B. I found this in GM ng. Do post history search for "Why I don't like Consumer Reports": "...Any way I can't see how other rating companies rate american cars so much better than CR. Also I notice another thing about them when they test cars, they never test the upscale versions of american cars against the japanese ones. Good example is when they tested the New Grand Am they used the bottom of the barrel SE against 2 top of the line japanese cars,(can't remember which ones)guess what, the grand am didn't handle as well or stop as well...If they would have used the GT which still cost less and out handles and stops better than either one of the japanese cars...". <br><br>C. Found in Saturn newsgroup: "...Consumer Reports has lumped twins together in their reliability results, so cars like Corolla and Prism are assured to have the same rating. In previous years, this was not the case, and the Japanese half of a twin almost always got a higher reliability rating than the half with the domestic nameplate"..."One gentleman on another Saturn forum did an interesting study. Basically he summed up all the individual ratings for a car in CR's review and averaged them. He then compared the results to the normalized overall rating bars for each class. Not suprisingly, VWs always got an overall rating boost, while cars like the Saturn SL got penalized...In 1999, 90% (37/41) of Japanese cars with the required reliabilty of average or better received a "Recommended" rating. Only 70% (24/34) of domestic cars did...It is noteworthy to mention that Saturn updated many of the areas where it did poorly in late '98, '99 and '00, yet CR hasn't given the SL2 another full review yet, though cars like Corolla have had new reviews though they remained essentially unchanged". <br><br>* CR accepts no outside advertising, but they can still be bought. Disclaimer: I did not accuse. I merely offered my opinion as to what could happen. <br><br>2. Car and Driver recently did an editorial on how some Japanese automakers spent a lot of money to get a little more quality out of their cars. <br><br>3. When doing a 'Hyundai' word search on a multi-engine, it spits out "Hyundai at Korea sold defective products to Egyptian..." <br><br>4. I recall an "editorial" on the FRONT PAGE of USA Today in which it detailed how Lexus engineers cut costs. This is not newsworthy material. <br><br>5. I have my reservations about Edmunds. <br><br>6. I think the newsgroups and Yahoo clubs are sometimes being used with various "testimonials" cracking on Ford and Hyundai. I've seen too many bad testimonies in the clubs. <br><br>Camry $26,098 - Sonata $17,799 = $8,299<br>What about quality?<br><a href=http://www.thecarplace.com/sonata2.htm target=new>http://www.thecarplace.com/sonata2.htm</a><br><a href=http://www.wedgx.com/thompson/hyundai/best.html target=new>http://www.wedgx.com/thompson/hyundai/best.html</a>