Vast Majority of Car Buyers Consider Dependability Rating Crucial
November 24, 2007
What new car buyers are looking for in their vehicles is dependability, according to a new poll conducted by automotive consumer advice web site BuyingAdvice.com.
In response to a new online survey by the web site, 90 percent of new car buyers said that dependability rating was “very” import in their vehicle choice. The poll was taken among buyers of new cars who used the site to receive competitive online price quotes.
Surprisingly, only 63 percent of those polled said that they knew the dependability rating of the vehicle for which they had requested an online price quote, even though dependability ratings for vehicles are widely available on the Internet.
The sample of 2055 users of the web site all stated that they were within 30 days of buying a new vehicle. More than half, 56 percent, said that they had excluded vehicles from their search because of poor dependability ratings.
Eighty-nine percent of those polled said they believed that vehicles with high scores for reliability depreciated slower. Higher resale value, lower maintenance cost and less time off the road were all cited as benefits of buying a vehicle with a high dependability score by industry experts.
BuyingAdvice experts advise studying the model history in conjunction with the dependability data to ensure that there have not been major changes in the design of the model in recent years. Frequently, dependability data is compiled from the experience owners have had in the last three years and so there is a delay in any current problems being reflected in the data.
BuyingAdvice also recommends studying the record of a particular model rather than just the manufacturer’s overall score. Dependability data is frequently based on a manufacturer as a whole, rather than for individual models within their line.
This study analyzing how important dependability is to buyers was the latest in a series of surveys conducted by the consumer advice and price quote web site that provides one of the most current and comprehensive pictures of the buying habits of online car buyers.
