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Comment by huffmsa | Hacker News Reader

> CR says Chrysler’s Pacifica was one that contributed to the drop in rankings thanks to the minivan’s infotainment and transmission issues.

Every single "downgrade" I read about is either infotainment or transmission or both.

Except Honda, which apparently has shit locks on it's kid hauler.

I'm a bit skeptical of consumer reports after actually reading it. My car, a Subaru WRX is given low marks for "stiff ride and constant engine noise", which I think re reason why people buy WRXs, not avoid them.

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CR reviews cars as appliances. Their target market is the mainstream buyer. If you're looking for a enthusiast review, they're the wrong publication.

What they do, they do well. Their reviews are consistently: "what my mom would say if she drove it".

Consumer Reports is not Car and Driver.

I haven't subscribed to CR for a long time but I found that was their approach to pretty much everything. Which is fine if you're buying an appliance. And, for me, isn't all that far off if I'm buying a car. Certainly, reliability stats are good to have at least. And, to the degree they're weighting criteria differently than I would, I can adjust for that.

Where CR really starts to diverge from my needs is when you are, as you say, an enthusiast or a prosumer type user of something like a camera, about which you have a lot of definite opinions. To the degree that CR lines up with what's important to you, it's mostly a coincidence.

Consumer Reports’ subscriber base trends older which is obviously not the same demographic as affordable performance car buyers. CR is still a great resource if you know nothing about a product market but enthusiasts outgrow it.

Also a lot of families - many of their other product reviews are either baby stuff, kitchen appliances, or cleaning products, which are lifesavers if you're a parent and...not all that useful if you're a single urban professional.

Safety, infotainment, door locks, and so on are of the utmost importance if you're carting a bunch of kids around. Stiff suspensions and engine noise are anti-features. Those priorities are reversed among driving enthusiasts, but that's not who the magazine's written for.

I dig the WRX, but I would love if the engine were quieter. IMO a quieter engine is always desirable - akin to how I always want my computers to have quieter fans for any given level of performance.

>I dig the WRX, but I would love if the engine were quieter.

As far as the WRX goes I would say you're in the minority. There was quite an uproar when Subaru ditched the unequal length headers on the WRX, eliminating the famous boxer rumble. That unique exhaust note is one of the reasons people love the WRX.

>IMO a quieter engine is always desirable - akin to how I always want my computers to have quieter fans for any given level of performance.

Aftermarket exhaust systems are quite popular, but I can't say that I've ever seen a computer fan noise amplification system. I understand not everyone wants a loud car, but there are plenty of cars coming out with factory valved exhaust so you can make the car scream when appropriate, and not just on high end sports cars either.

Yes, I know I'm in the minority, but I tend to think my preferences are correct, and that car enthusiasts who enjoy loud engine noises are as weird as PC enthusiasts who enjoy loud GPUs. :)

Are there PC enthusiasts who enjoy loud GPU's, or is that a joke that I missed?

Not to enthusiasts, who are driving for the experience of driving, including the feel, sound, etc

I have an Audi S8, and it's "holy fucking shit" fast... but the exhaust is so quiet :( It's quite an engineering achievement actually, that big V8 is moving a ton of air. I wish they hadn't done quite so well.

I consider myself an enthusiast, and still consider engine noise to be undesirable.

Among various other car things, I'm very enthusiastic for in-car noise cancelling: https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/9/18175748/bose-noise-cancel...

Interestingly enough, the industry is actually going the opposite direction. Engines are getting quieter externally, to avoid pissing off your neighbors (there are few things as annoying as a tuner with a fart-can exhaust driving down a residential street), but with artificial engine noise piped into the cabin via the speakers in order to give enthusiasts the noisy experience they want.

That should help with some of the fans of loud engines—those who just like listening to their own car.

But I can't shake the suspicion that a significant percentage of loudness fans want other people to listen to their vehicle (With bikers, this is explicitly acknowledged in the name of security: "Loud Pipes Save Lives").

>Among various other car things, I'm very enthusiastic for in-car noise cancelling:

This is one of the biggest gripes of automotive reviewers when it comes to cabin noise and I agree. My GT-R has it (that exact Bose technology you linked) and I find it quite obnoxious. It neuters the sound of engine and all I'm left with is more road and wind noise. Save that for an S-Class, it has no place in sports cars.

The article I linked is about a new, separate piece of tech that specifically targets non-engine noise, unlike Bose's currently available offerings, and isn't due to be available in production cars until ~2022 car models.

>The article I linked is about a new, separate piece of tech that specifically targets non-engine noise, unlike Bose's currently available offerings

That is the intended functionality Bose's current tech, but it doesn't work very well for sports cars in my opinion. It's probably just an update that they're re-branding as an entirely different technology.

>I consider myself an enthusiast, and still consider engine noise to be undesirable.

Same here. That said, the flat 4 has a really nice note (engines with a flat plane crankshaft generally do) so I can understand why people want it to sing when they step on it.

I can relate, I love the sound of a flat crank V8. Yet I'd be just as happy experiencing that as a convincing sound effect in the cabin of my EV, or well silenced ICE as actually bothering people in the real world with actually open exhausts.

Given some places are requiring EVs to actually emit a little more sound for the benefit of blind and partially sighted people, I'm surprised we're not moving towards choosing vehicle sound packs along with paint colours...

Yep you buy a WRX for the drivetrain and rally heritage ... the terrible plastic interior was a moot point.

The seats are comfy enough, the steering wheel is beefy, the only point of failure I've had is the battery. Otherwise, it's exactly what it's supposed to be.

CR give my other car, a Jaguar F-Pace low marks for "loud engine and cabin, stiff choppy ride and bad infotainment."

Which to me sounds like a lot of soccer mom's thought they were getting "luxury" utility vehicle but accidentally purchase a 350hp supercharged v6 "sport" utility vehicle.

Cars are for driving, not "infotainment".

> Cars are for driving, not "infotainment".

If you're one of the ~30 million Americans, crawling along in your single-occupant vehicle through rush-hour gridlock, you will care a lot more about the 'infotainment' part of your car than the 'driving' part.

Or you're just on a long drive. I care about how vehicles drive (though I mostly prioritize carrying a bunch of stuff over sports car performance). But I'm not sure I'd buy a car that didn't have CarPlay at this point having had rentals with it and without it. (My own vehicle basically predates all that stuff.)

These ratings are comparative. If youve mostly interacted with your two brands, and not the other ones at the top of the list, how can you compare them and say yours isnt worse?

Infotainment includes maps, air conditioning, heat, radio. Those are important things to do easily in a car.

HVAC is certainly not infotainment, there are safety implications if the defrosters don't work. The HVAC controls should never be at the mercy of whatever phoned-in UI the radio and satnav have in your car.

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