{"id":2677,"date":"2006-03-01T21:01:00","date_gmt":"2006-03-02T02:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/2006\/03\/conspicuous-consumption\/"},"modified":"2010-12-30T12:02:04","modified_gmt":"2010-12-30T17:02:04","slug":"conspicuous-consumption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/2006\/03\/conspicuous-consumption\/","title":{"rendered":"Conspicuous Consumption"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Braking<\/a><\/p>\n

Chances are you associate Consumer Reports<\/i><\/a> with boring, sensible cars – transportation appliances. Chances are you also, like me, sneak off to the library to consult their ratings when buying your own daily driver, whether it’s new or, like mine, well used.<\/p>\n

Yesterday
\nCR<\/i><\/a> opened their
\ntest site<\/a> to the automotive and mainstream media, giving us a glimpse of how those ratings are made and revealing that there are plenty of car guys and gals on their 21-member staff. Scribblers on hand were as diverse as columnists for the San Francisco Chronicle<\/i><\/a>, the online broadcast “Auto Lab”<\/a> and popular Professional Car Reporter
\nGregg Merksamer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Senior Director David
\n“Champ”<\/a> Champion led the tour of the facility, located on a
\n327-acre campus<\/a> originally the site of Connecticut Dragway<\/a>. Included were demonstrations of CR<\/i>‘s tests for
\ncornering abilility<\/a>,
\nroad handling<\/a>, headlight performance and
\nwet-road braking<\/a>. Particularly convincing was a dramatic demo of electronic stability control, a feature Champ calls the “single most important recent advance in safety.” Comparative runs showed that ESC could make the difference between
\ncontrolling a car<\/a> in an
\nevasive maneuver<\/a> and
\nlosing it<\/a>. He and the CR<\/i> staff feel it should be standard equipment on all cars.<\/p>\n

CR<\/i> testing now includes all types of cars, economy to luxury, compact to SUV. A dedicated course called
\n“Rock Hill”<\/a> sorts out 4×4 prowess, rating yesterday’s cars, in descending order of agility,
\nLand Rover<\/a>,
\nToyota Tundra<\/a>,
\nHummer H3<\/a> and
\nFord Explorer<\/a> (the lack of daylight under the Explorer exposes its Achilles heel – its skid plates got a workout). Sports cars, like the
\nMazda MX-5 Miata and Pontiac Solstice<\/a>, are included, as are hot hatches like the VW GTI. Interesting ongoing investigations are a “grease burning” modification to a
\nVW diesel<\/a> and aftermarket supercharger on a
\nToyota<\/a>. Of course practical tests, like
\ncargo capacity<\/a> and installation of
\nchild seats<\/a>, are still a staple of CR evaluations.<\/p>\n

CR<\/i> had an agenda for all this festivity, the launch of the annual
\nAuto Issue<\/a>, which
\ndebuts today<\/a>. Of no surprise to anyone was the fact that all ten Top Picks are
\nJapanese<\/a> (last year’s single holdout was the Ford Focus). New (or redesigned) TPs are the
\nHonda Civic<\/a>,
\nToyota Highlander Hybrid<\/a>,
\nInfiniti M35x and Honda Ridgeline pickup<\/a>. They join returning alumni Honda Accord, Acura TL, Subaru Forester, Honda Odyssey, Toyota Prius and Subaru Impreza WRX\/STi.<\/p>\n

While all CR<\/i>-tested cars are new (they buy them from dealers and keep them for 6-8 months and about that many thousand miles) there’s evidence that somebody on staff has a fondness for
\nold cars<\/a> –
\nBritish ones<\/a> at that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chances are you associate Consumer Reports with boring, sensible cars – transportation appliances. Chances are you also, like me, sneak off to the library to consult their ratings when buying your own daily driver, whether it’s new or, like mine, well used. Yesterday CR opened their test site to the automotive and mainstream media, giving….<\/span>
Read full article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2677"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3397,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2677\/revisions\/3397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}