08's info

[vivaespana]

http://autos.msn.com/research/...Versa

[Rockhound]

I'm not sure if Ann Job test drives many economy cars, but the quietude factor shouldn't be judged against, say a Lexus ES. I happen to think that the Versa is admirably quiet and provides a nice serene ride - especially for an economy car. I rarely find her reviews to be of much value. It seems like both of those "pros" on MSN find one little gripe and focus on it too much.

[Ever Victorious]

Agreed to an extent. Both of those reviewers kind of expect every car they get into to be "the perfect car", as opposed to comparing cars relative to others in the same class and price point.

They sometimes have some insightful information, particularly Dan Jedlicka... I find him to be more useful.

So I listen to them with a grain of salt. And the salt tells me to do things. Horrible horrible things. I mean... erm...

[Rockhound]

Yeah, Jedlicka is definitely the better of the two, but it seems that one or both of them seem to always nit-pick on the cars I really admire...yet praise other, less worthy cars (ex. '07 Malibu = 8.5, '07 G35 = 8.0). Oh well.

As for autos.msn, it is a great place to research stats - especially reliability. It offers detailed reliability info that most other publications make you pay for. Good stuff there for sure.

[Woogie]

From reading the Ann Job review, it sounds like she got one with the door dimple manufacturing defect, thus the complaint about the noise. Now that the problem has been fixed, they really should edit the review.

I think that professional car reviewers aren't really the best source of input for economy cars, though. It has to do with expectations. I mean, if you drive a bunch of $45,000 cars to review, how could you possibly keep from being biased against a $15,000 car? I personally find reviews from people who were looking for a car and test drove a lot of cars in the same price range to be more useful.

[Rockhound]

I think that professional car reviewers aren't really the best source of input for economy cars, though. It has to do with expectations. I mean, if you drive a bunch of $45,000 cars to review, how could you possibly keep from being biased against a $15,000 car? I personally find reviews from people who were looking for a car and test drove a lot of cars in the same price range to be more useful.

That's a great point...that's why I mentioned that Ann shouldn't judge the Versa's interior road noise to luxury cars, but to other similarly priced cars. That's why I like the comparo's that publications like Car & Driver perform. They pit several like-minded cars against each other and then rank them accordingly. So you get a Versa versus Fit type comparison, not Versa versus ES350 or some such nonsense.