The Criticisms of JD Powers: A Perspective on Reliability and Advertising

Scotty, a car enthusiast, often expresses his skepticism towards the reliability rankings of JD Powers, a well-known advertising company. He believes that JD Powers' ratings are biased and based solely on their paid advertisements, as they do not provide any expert opinion or genuine feedback from customers. Scotty compares this to his own experiences with Consumer Reports, which rated Remington typewriters as some of the worst, despite being made of solid metal and known for their reliability.

Scotty recalls an instance where he had a conversation with his father, who sold Remington typewriters, about why they were rated so poorly by Consumer Reports. The company's test, which involved dropping the typewriters 6 feet on solid concrete, was deemed unrealistic by Scotty's father, as precision machines like typewriters should not be subjected to such physical stress. Similarly, Scotty believes that many of the products reviewed by JD Powers are subjected to unscientific and unreliable tests, which do not accurately reflect their performance in real-world conditions.

Scotty also expresses his frustration with the way JD Powers conducts surveys to gather feedback from customers. He claims that the company only interviews people who have a positive opinion about their brand-new car, but will hang up on those who express negative sentiments. This, Scotty believes, is an attempt to manipulate the results and create a skewed perception of the product's quality.

The discussion then shifts to the reliability of older vehicles, such as the 93 Nissan pickup with 160,000 miles. Scotty questions the value of this vehicle, given its age and mileage, but notes that some four-cylinder engine models can last a long time if properly maintained. He shares his own experiences with customers who have owned these vehicles for hundreds of thousands of miles without major issues.

The conversation also touches on the topic of transmission oil changes and their potential impact on the vehicle's performance. Scotty explains that changing the transmission fluid is not necessary for Toyota engines, which are designed to last longer with proper maintenance. However, for American-made cars like Chrysler or Chevy, changing the transmission oil can help prevent damage caused by dirty fluid and worn-out clutch materials.

Finally, Manny Ramirez asks about a specific issue his Honda has been experiencing: losing power when going uphill. Scotty attributes this problem to "losing power under a load," which is most commonly experienced during uphill driving, especially at higher speeds. He recommends starting with simple repairs like changing the fuel filter and pressure testing the fuel pump, as these can often resolve the issue. However, in rare cases, problems may arise from faulty automatic transmissions, and it's essential to inspect these components before they fail.

The discussion highlights Scotty's skepticism towards the reliability rankings of JD Powers and emphasizes the importance of conducting thorough maintenance checks on vehicles to prevent costly repairs. By sharing his own experiences and expertise, Scotty aims to educate car enthusiasts about the value of proper maintenance and the potential pitfalls of relying solely on advertising companies for reliability ratings.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enrev up your engines, Nokia flip-phonesays Scotty why do you always sayMercedes are unreliable when JD Powersranks them one of the best cars in 2018, Ialways laugh when I see this JD powerstuff, if anybody doesn't know JD Powers isbasically a giant advertising company,it's an advertising firm, it's a PR firmwhy would anybody take their slant onanything, because they do what they getpaid to do, it's just the stupidest thingon earth, I don't know why anybody wouldlisten to any of that stuff,I even had a thing years ago at onepoint in time my father sold Remingtontypewriters, and one of these ConsumerReports rated their typewriters as oneof the worst, and everybody knew theseRemington's are pretty good typewriter,their made out of all metal and they're realheavy, so he calls him up one time andsaid, how come you're rating thisRemington typewriter so lowly, and theysaid well because when we dropped them 6feet on solid concrete then they didn'twork as well, he said these are aprecision machine, you don't drop them 6feet on concrete, what kind of aridiculous test is that, well and a lotof those things from stuff like JDPowers is the same thing, they do stufflike, best in initial quality and whatthey do is, cuz I had a customer thatactually used to work in advertising andthey would call people that own thecars to see what they thought, and ifthey called somebody up and says, youknow what do you think about your brandnew Chrysler and the person startssaying, what a piece of junk I hatethey'd hang up and it wouldn't countthat in the list of people theyinterviewed, so don't listen to anythingthat any of these PR firms say aboutanything really,they're advertising firms they're paidto talk about stuff, their no expertsyou know they're just paid and haveawards for the most retardedthings too, I mean I can't wait till theyhave JD Powers the best toilet paper ofthe yea,r that wouldn't surprise meeither,Daniel says Scotty what do youthink of a 93 Nissan pickup with 160,000miles, 93 was when Nissan was stillmaking solid pickup trucks,I got customers with those things that havethree hundred thousand miles on them, theirsnothing wrong with buying one but it's a93 so what are you talking about,twenty-six-year-old vehicle, so you knowit's an older vehicle and it's not worththat much money, don't pay a whole bunchof money for it, but those things can runa long long long time, especially if it'sa four-cylinder engine, because thosefour cylinder engine ones, Man Alive theycould last a long time and if it's got astandard transmission even more so theycan run forever,and just keep going and going, that waslong before Renault took over Nissanback in 93yeah those those things were solid built andthe customers of mine that had them backthen, they were pretty happy with them,Jonny darter says is there any truth thatchanging your transmission oil will lockup the tranny down the road, I got an 09Pontiac Vibe, bought it with 90,000 notas 180,000, drives great but I haven'tchanged the transmission or coolant, okaywell you want to change them bothrealize that's really a Toyota, its aToyota engine and transmission andchanging the fluid in them doesn't reallydamage anything because they're adifferent kind of transmission, but let'stake an American car like a Chrysler ora Chevy like the older transmissionsin those and some of the newer onesstill shed clutch materials they haveautomatic clutches, and when the fluidgets dirty the only thing that's makingthem go is the dirty fluid becausethere's more friction so it keepssliding enough in the torque converterthat it runs, if you put in new fluid onone of those that has 180,000 miles, itwon't lock up, usually what happens is itjust slips and it won't go anywhere, or itwon't shift gears right, so on those you don'twant to change, but on that, that's a toyotaproduct, change that and definitelychange the coolant too, and use theToyota coolant the HOAT coolant it'smuch better it last longer, Manny Ramirezsays my Honda loses power only when itgoes uphill what causes this, well that'scalled losing power under a load, theheaviest load your car is gonna have iswhen you're going uphill, especially ifyou're doing at higher speeds, start withthe simple stuff, first change the fuelfilter, something as dumb as a clogged fuelfilter can cause that, if it's not thatafter you change the filter, pressuretest the fuel pump, a weak fuel pump willdo the same thing, now if you have dirtyfuel injectors and the fuel pump is okay,that'll do that so if you get them pressurecleaned that's a good thing to do,and this is rare but it canhappen, and you want to pray it's notthat, if you got a bad automatictransmission sometimes when thetransmissions go out, they have problemsgoing uphill,I had a car three years ago with theToyota, everybody says oh yeah you tell howgreatToyotas are, well everything breakseventually, and it would only act up whenit went up hill and i finally figuredout and said, you know it's your transmissionand I don't overhaul automatictransmissions, I sent them to my tranny guyand he fixed it and the problem wentaway, but that's relatively rare, theother problems show up more often, socheck them first, so if you never want tomiss another one of my new car repairvideos, remember to ring that Bell!\n"