I used to temp for CR in Yonkers, NY. CR is not biased by advertising revenue, and they do not allow other comnpanies to use CR ratings in ads. Therefore they are more objective than say Road&Track or Car&Driver. The statistics do not lie. Toyota and Honda have long kicked ass and will continue to kick ass in the area of reliability and time outside of the shop.

But their best has not matched BMW's best in terms of performance and handling. My entire family drives Camrys and 4Runners. These things will take a licking and keep on ticking. But I still love my X5 for the fun factor.

Incidentally, I was watching a Lexus demo on one of the car channels on TV, and they were bragging how their latest IS model outperforms the BMW 3-series in all categories. Of course they didn't mention WHICH 3-series model they used for the comparison. There were some quick videos of the slalom, and it looked like they were running against a 330i. I'd like to see them try that against the 335i with the twin-turbo, or better yet an M3! They'd get their asses handed to them on a silver platter.

:confused: what?

There is no car built by Germans like a GTR....period. You're sounding a little pretentious yourself.

Well - a GTR's main PR stunt so far is that it will 'beat a 911' - which means that it is really just a newcomer trying to be cool like the 40 y/o german. Nothing particulary wrong with that, except - it is not trying to be as wonderful as the 911 - its sole purpose in life is to beat the 911 on the track, meaning that those 40 years of experience porsche has spent on making their cars enjoyable, the GTR has to compensate for by being ... what? cheap? That makes its a white good of cars and really rather pointless. It will be a car for people who want a super-car but can't afford one, so its likely that will make it a poser-mobile. Its the same story with almost any other car that tries to impose itself on another car's territory.

I, ofcourse, say that having very little insight into the GTR and further more having an irrational loathing of 911's :)

You are an idiot.

pinoix5

Just curious. If you're really a BMW hater then why not see If you can take a moment, put together a decent sentence, and muster a constructive comment about the consumers report in the original post. :rolleyes:

I had a 911 and would love the GT-R. Remember it ran with the 911TT not 911n/a...major difference. And the Porsche has nothing on the GT-R IMO. Not until you start putting letters after 997... ;) And the GT-R is not brand new to the seen, it's been in Japan for quite a while.

Glad to see someone gets it exactly like it is. The GTR was built in 89 to compete performace-wise against specifically the 911, and i will say, dis very well in that area, and nowhere else.

The car was not invented in Japan, neither was the engine, nor disc brakes, nor independent suspension. They are always late to the party trying to be something else.

One thing they are is very reliable. I respect that. I'm a real estate developer. I just bought a fleet of Toyota Hilux for my new proyect, and i would not have considered anything other than Japanese, they are remarkable in that area, switching from dogde trucks to toyotas cut our fleet's maintenence budget by 32%.

If you are here you may have bought an X5, but i hope you did for the same reasons as some of us did, the right reasons, because we love the fun and excitement that they bring into our lives, to us getting from A to B is not about cold hard performance numbers, price, or reliability, it's the ear to ear grin when you get out of your car. And if all you care about is piling miles on miles at the same speed and all you care about is repair bills, then you don't have a driver's soul.

Hate to quote a wiki but actually the "Skyline" has been around since the late 60's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Skyline_GT-R

Not sure how we got on the Japan/German tangent but whatever.

I was refering to the last generation, which was designed to compete against the 911.
And by the way, i never debated that the GTR is a bad car. as a matter of fact i recall calling it "a great driving car". Nevertheless its intention was to be something else.
The GTR I will insist is a great car, but can you honestly tell me that all nissans drive like that? do all toyotas dirve like a supra? Every model in a Japanese car manufacturer's lineup is designed to compete against others for market share, not according to their company's history. On the contrary all BMW's have very defined driving characteristics that makes them BMW's its not the badge, but this heritage that is their signature, from a 20K 1 Series to a 160K 7 Series. I think that engeneering-wise its even outstanding haw they copied this so faitfully into a 4x4.
We got into this "debate" because the report originally intended to compare MDX's to X5's, but it is doing so in an area outside of what an X5 is supposed to do, which is, like I said, make you smile every time you drive it. I think that the MDX fails far worse in that area than the X5 fails in reliability.

Roundel, BMW CCA's own magazine, compared the MDX directly to the X5 and RDX to X3 (both X's lost by the way). So it is 100% valid to compare those models IMO. The 1er is going to cost far more then 20K when released in the states but that is beside the point. I would agree that not all Nissan's are powered to be like a Skyline. That would be pointless as such all their cars would then be 45K+...ohhh like BMW :rofl: Oh an the M Bimmers feel nothing like their non-M counter parts.

As was stated much earlier, CR compares what the average driver wants & can afford.