[Juballharshaw]

Shamelessly stolen from Motor Authority:

Influential magazine Consumer Reports has come out with its annual list of the top rated car brands and once again Japanese makes have dominated the field. First and second places were taken up by Toyota and Honda but this year’s result also saw U.S. automakers improve their standings, with three of the top five spots going to one of the Detroit 3 brands.

The survey focuses on how consumers perceive and rank car brands in seven crucial areas, including safety, quality, value, performance, environmental friendliness, design, and technological innovation. It also looks at which of those factors are most important to consumers when buying a vehicle.

The survey data was collected from 1,720 adults whose households own at least one car. The most important aspects consumers looked for in brand were safety, which was considered most important by 63% of those in the study, followed by quality on 58%.

The field of worst performers shows just how mediocre some brands are considered in the U.S. despite being popular overseas. Audi, which scored just 14 points, will have to work extremely hard to overcome its poor image if it has any hope of trying to compete with the likes of Mercedes and BMW.

The results of the study are as follows.
Best:
Toyota - 189
Honda - 146
Ford - 112
Chevrolet - 110
GMC - 102

Worst:
Buick - 25
Mercury - 22
Mitsubishi - 21
Audi - 14
Acura - 8

Bolding mine.

How do two groups of cars with shared platforms rank on two different ends of the scale?

Also, is there a way we can disable the find similar thread "feature" in our profile. Not all of us are fucking retarded when it comes to thread making plus it's hideously ginormous and cumbersome.

[tweakmonkey]

Also, is there a way we can disable the find similar thread "feature" in our profile. Not all of us are fucking retarded when it comes to thread making plus it's hideously ginormous and cumbersome.

It has nothing to do with being retarded. I use it all the time to find old threads because it's a lot faster than searching the whole forum and don't consider myself to be retarded.

And I don't see why it being big is really a problem since it only appears after you've tabbed into the main message box so it appears *above* your cursor even.

I will look into a way to disable it per a profile option but that defeats the whole purpose of putting it on there.

Edit - maybe I can just make it a little smaller or something for now.

[Chainblade]

haha ya that is interesting considering the Acura's are just rebadged Hondas. They are the same flippin vehicle. But like the article says. It's basically just based on image.

[Juballharshaw]

Originally Posted by tweakmonkey

It has nothing to do with being retarded. I use it all the time to find old threads because it's a lot faster than searching the whole forum and don't consider myself to be retarded.

And I don't see why it being big is really a problem since it only appears after you've tabbed into the main message box so it appears *above* your cursor even.

I will look into a way to disable it per a profile option but that defeats the whole purpose of putting it on there.

Edit - maybe I can just make it a little smaller or something for now.

It's as big as the message box itself, note that on my 1680x1050 how much real estate it takes up! Maybe having it active only in the forums in which guests can post without registering? Also, are new threads really that big of a deal, especially as it creates potentially new sources of ad-revenue? Not to mention bumping ancient threads is fairly annoying.

*Blah blah blah more bitching about changes here*

[tweakmonkey]

Originally Posted by Juballharshaw

It's as big as the message box itself, note that on my 1680x1050 how much real estate it takes up!

So? What's the matter with using some of that precious real estate? It only appears when you're in the post a new thread section. If you didn't use that space for that related threads box, you wouldn't use it for anything and would instead have a bunch of white space at the bottom of the page, or worst case you'd have to scroll 2 inches

Also, of course using a single vague word title will creating a mess like that. Try typing "Zeitgeist" or "Rock Band" and you'll see why we installed that mod.

Maybe having it active only in the forums in which guests can post without registering?

Guests can't post. And that isn't really the point. See below.

Also, are new threads really that big of a deal, especially as it creates potentially new sources of ad-revenue? Not to mention bumping ancient threads is fairly annoying.

*Blah blah blah more bitching about changes here*

There's *many* benefits to bumping old threads versus posting new ones. You have all the discussion on a particular topic (for example, a game, like Rock Star) in one thread instead of 8 threads. There's nothing wrong with bumping old threads if the information is still relevant. You can also see if links/stories/videos have already been posted.

I'll take a higher quality thread (with 20 replies for example) than five threads with 4-replies over a few bucks in advertising, and it wouldn't even be that much. Sorry to thread crap here, if you want to continue this discussion we can do it over PM.

[offroadin]

I don't even bother with those reports. The reports said themselves they were based on what adults thought. The average person isn't a car guy. So why would I (being a car guy) heed any of it. The spread between Honda and Acura shows how accurate the reports are.