What's that? Lexus? Really?

Jstas

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

The way that you over-react and lose your cool makes it kinda hard to even have a civil conversation with you. As mentioned before, I could have been a little more 'sensitive' with my first point, but your reaction was WAY overkill and uncalled for, and it's not the first time it's happened with me.

'Cause it's not the first time you've run your mouth at me like that.

My original response still stands.










As far as your numbers, what's reported is what's spun to support a story. What's the sample size? How does it compare to the population? Is the sample size large enough to show something indicative of the population? Nobody ever seems to be able to answer those questions. What's worse is companies like JD Power and Consumer Reports won't release their collection methods, survey background or the actual results because it's "proprietary". Yeah, that tears down any credibility they might have built up and when I look at all of the survey companies "results", percentages are so close it's not even funny. They are close enough to fall within a margin of error in many cases. But then again, they don't tell you the margin of error so you don't even know if the survey results were valid. If less than 1 percentage point separates a large portion of your result categories but your margin of error is 5% then the difference falls well within your margin of error and there, technically and statistically, is no difference between the top 10 and your sample size was way too small.

But the reports list top to bottom in numerical order. The top five spots of the last JD Powers survey I saw were separated by less than 1.5 percentage points. The top 10 spots were within 6 percentage points. Even with a .5% margin of error on the survey results, that still puts the different brands pretty much neck and neck. That's for any brand, Buick, Lexus, Honda, BMW, you name it. What's worse is that they may survey say 100 cars from each company. That might be good for a small company like, say, Audi but what about a large company like Toyota? Say Audi makes 1000 cars a year? 100 owners surveyed is 10%, a pretty good chunk. But Toyota makes 10,000 cars a year. 100 owners surveyed is only 1% and now paints a completely different story. Statistically you are less likely to find the 5% of unhappy owners in 1% of the population than you are in 10% of the population. So yeah, every test is flawed but you can't formulate a valid conclusion if the reported results from the already flawed survey are incomplete. So no, I don't trust any survey put out there. I only throw the same surveys in people's faces because I find it fun to rebut someone's half-assed argument with their own "evidence".

But you harp on and on about the tests like they tell you something solid when in reality they are vague and manipulated to show a story that gets views. They get views by reinforcing the inaccurate assumptions the majority of the population makes. They cater to the sheeple who don't like to hear that what they "know" as truth is not really accurate. It gets them all upset and angry at the person or entity telling them different.

You want to argue your opinion but you use vague, unsubstantiated numbers to support your opinion. If I break down your numbers you get mad and tell me I'm "pro-Ford" and full of "blind brand allegiance". But if you're going to attack my stance with Ford as the example, it makes no sense for me to use GM, Chrysler or even Mercedes as a rebuttal.

You also drug the personal aspect in to it, yet again, and now your are incensed that I flipped out on you. You don't go poking a chained dog with a stick and expect it not to get mad. You can't antagonize and attack someone personally and not expect them to get mad either. I ripped on Toyota for a cheesy fix. I didn't say all Toyotas were crap because of it, I just laughed at the sheer absurdity of a Lexus with zip-tied floormats. You went and drug something completely off-base in to it. If Ford did something stupid like that, I would have pointed it out as well. But, since we have to drag your example up again, the master cylinder issue gets fixed with a fused connection which, given the electrical nature of the problem, is a sound engineering solution. What's to make fun of? That it's cheap? Eh, not really. Especially when the switch it is repairing costs $20.99. Is it dangerous? Actually, no, not at all. There are fused connections all over any vehicle with very similar purpose. The Toyota fix though? It's already been pointed out by several others that it might fix one safety issue but possibly introduces several others. A fix to remove liability shouldn't introduce new liabilities, that's just bad engineering. Even if it is temporary. Ford's temporary fix was to unplug the cruise control sensor. No power, no risk of fire, only drawback is the loss of the convenience of cruise control. Big whoop and no further liability unless the owner fails to follow-up on the recall. But if the owner is notified then Ford would have precedent for denying a liability claim. Ain't it neat how the legal system works? Maybe Toyota wouldn't be embroiled in one of the nastiest lawsuits I've ever seen if they had just followed Ford's lead, took the bad with the good and manned up instead of covering up. It's a PR disaster for Toyota.

But you don't see that train of thought. You have your typical and quite common knee-jerk reaction to discredit me by attacking my character rather than offering a logical counter-point to my statements. You attack the arguer instead of the argument and then you proceed to laugh at me and mock me for "over-reacting" to yet another one of your ignorance induced fits of narcissism. Whether you can or can't rebut my argument doesn't matter to me. But if you can't do anything more than essentially say "here goes Jstas on another one his things again" then just shut the hell up because it's not constructive at all.

SKsolutions

I have the vehicle and the mat in the article.
Unless you have thumbs and fingers on your feet instead of toes, and you drive standing up while wearing flip-flops, you aren't getting that floor-mat to move -even an inch- on purpose.
A Toyota/Lexus is like the Mac of the auto world. It's just supposed to work, and doesn't require much in the way of skillful operation. I think that many people may feel that they can feel free to be the complete and unaware idiot they've always aspired to be. Nothing is idiot proof, . . this thread is becoming a case in point.

Comparing an obvious "you have to be a moron" user-error-- to a failure of a component that sets the vehicle ablaze - often without a freaking key in it, is hardly postulating in good faith.

AsSiMiLaTeD

OK fine...I'm gonna break this up into 2 posts, one regarding the factual debate and one regarding the personal issues. Unfortunately this breaks up the continuity of the discussion a bit but I couldn't get it all in one post.

What's the sample size? How does it compare to the population? Is the sample size large enough to show something indicative of the population? Nobody ever seems to be able to answer those questions.

You didn't read the studies did you? The answer to your first question is right there in black in white on the study, "The 2009 Vehicle Dependability Study is based on responses from more than 46,000 original owners of 2006 model-year vehicles". Now let's do a little stats analysis:

The total population size is difficult to determine, but lets just say that there are 300 million people in America and every single one of them bought a new car in 2006 (that's the model year for which the 2009 VDS study was done). Now we know that's way too high, but the greater your total population is the greater sample size you need, so this is absolute worst case scenario. In order to achieve a confidence level of 99% with a confidence interval or precision of 1, with a population of 300 million, you need a sample size of 16,640.

We've got 46,000 on the VDS survey, so we're covered in terms of sample size, easily.

What's worse is companies like JD Power and Consumer Reports won't release their collection methods, survey background or the actual results because it's "proprietary".

They don't release the exact 202 problems that they're looking for, but they do talk about their methodology in conducting the survey. Another thing to consider is that, while no two companies have the exact same measurement and it's therefore difficult to conduct an overall MSA across the board, the fact that most of the various surveys out there tend to paint the same picture helps to validate those results.

Yeah, that tears down any credibility they might have built up and when I look at all of the survey companies "results", percentages are so close it's not even funny. They are close enough to fall within a margin of error in many cases. But then again, they don't tell you the margin of error so you don't even know if the survey results were valid. If less than 1 percentage point separates a large portion of your result categories but your margin of error is 5% then the difference falls well within your margin of error and there, technically and statistically, is no difference between the top 10 and your sample size was way too small.

The percentages at the top are very close, yes, but as you move down the list the gap becomes wider. Since we're already on this track, let's take Toyota and Ford (I'm looking at the latest VDS test by the way). Toyota has a defects rate of 129% (that's 129 problems for every 100 vehicles sold, we're talking about defects here, not defective units as that's more difficult to measure with cars because at what point is it tagged as defective as a whole vs just measuring customer problems). Ford has a rate of 159, so that's 30 more - I believe that comes out to roughly a 20% difference. That's certainly not an insignificant number.

But the reports list top to bottom in numerical order. The top five spots of the last JD Powers survey I saw were separated by less than 1.5 percentage points. The top 10 spots were within 6 percentage points. Even with a .5% margin of error on the survey results, that still puts the different brands pretty much neck and neck. That's for any brand, Buick, Lexus, Honda, BMW, you name it. What's worse is that they may survey say 100 cars from each company. That might be good for a small company like, say, Audi but what about a large company like Toyota? Say Audi makes 1000 cars a year? 100 owners surveyed is 10%, a pretty good chunk. But Toyota makes 10,000 cars a year. 100 owners surveyed is only 1% and now paints a completely different story. Statistically you are less likely to find the 5% of unhappy owners in 1% of the population than you are in 10% of the population. So yeah, every test is flawed but you can't formulate a valid conclusion if the reported results from the already flawed survey are incomplete. So no, I don't trust any survey put out there. I only throw the same surveys in people's faces because I find it fun to rebut someone's half-assed argument with their own "evidence".

I've already addressed this somewhat, but I'll expound a bit, specifically the part that I've bolded there. From a statistics perspective your statement is actually inaccurate. You really don't need a large portion of the population in order to get a valid sample. With smaller populations you do need a larger percentage of the population, but as the population size gets larger you need a less percentage (note I said percentage, not number) of the population to draw valid conclusions. Note the calculations I did above. Plop those numbers into any stats tool (QI Macros, Minitab, whatever) and you'll see what I mean, and those numbers were with a 99% confidence level with a precision of 1, industry standard for something like a survey is typically 95/5 at most, and often even less than that.

The point is, sample size is not an issue unless the sample is being biased.

But you harp on and on about the tests like they tell you something solid when in reality they are vague and manipulated to show a story that gets views. They get views by reinforcing the inaccurate assumptions the majority of the population makes. They cater to the sheeple who don't like to hear that what they "know" as truth is not really accurate. It gets them all upset and angry at the person or entity telling them different.

There's really nothing factual to dispute there, that's more your OPINION and no sense in really debating that.

You want to argue your opinion but you use vague, unsubstantiated numbers to support your opinion. If I break down your numbers you get mad and tell me I'm "pro-Ford" and full of "blind brand allegiance".

Again that's simply not true. I don't feel like there's anything specific in your comment here that hasn't already been addressed, but if I'm missing something let me know.

But if you're going to attack my stance with Ford as the example, it makes no sense for me to use GM, Chrysler or even Mercedes as a rebuttal.

I concur

But, since we have to drag your example up again, the master cylinder issue gets fixed with a fused connection which, given the electrical nature of the problem, is a sound engineering solution.

The fact that it existed in the first place was a bad engineering design. The fix I'm sure is great, but the problem to begin with as I understand it was the result of a bad design.

What's to make fun of? That it's cheap? Eh, not really. Especially when the switch it is repairing costs $20.99. Is it dangerous? Actually, no, not at all.

Are you asking if the problem is dangerous? I would classify a vehicle suddenly bursting into flames as dangerous. Again, I've seen this FIRST-HAND, and yeah the guy was a moron for not getting it fixed, but it was NOT pretty.

There are fused connections all over any vehicle with very similar purpose. The Toyota fix though? It's already been pointed out by several others that it might fix one safety issue but possibly introduces several others. A fix to remove liability shouldn't introduce new liabilities, that's just bad engineering. Even if it is temporary. Ford's temporary fix was to unplug the cruise control sensor. No power, no risk of fire, only drawback is the loss of the convenience of cruise control.

I will agree that theoretically this is true, but I think this is reaching. The chances of getting caught somehow in the zip tie are probably about as remote as the guy at Ford dropping a wrench when disabling the CCM and that getting stuck under your gas pedal.

I'm not sure if this is what you're saying, but if you truly believe that the floormat thing is even on the same level of severity as the cruise control module then I'm not going to be able to change your mind on that.

Big whoop and no further liability unless the owner fails to follow-up on the recall. But if the owner is notified then Ford would have precedent for denying a liability claim. Ain't it neat how the legal system works? Maybe Toyota wouldn't be embroiled in one of the nastiest lawsuits I've ever seen if they had just followed Ford's lead, took the bad with the good and manned up instead of covering up. It's a PR disaster for Toyota.

The effect this has on Toyota remains to be seen, so no point in arguing that with you.


continues...

AsSiMiLaTeD

...continued

Cause it's not the first time you've run your mouth at me like that.

Fair enough, let's see if we can find the first time I 'ran my mouth at you like that'. I believe that would have been THIS thread. You posted about FORD giving out a happy B-day to GM. I then posted THIS reply, directed at the guys at FORD, not you. You then responded with THIS.. I'll make a couple notes here:

1 - That was a similar situation where I was not attacking you and you directly attacked me.
2 - As best as I can find, that's our furst such interaction. Therefore, your argument that you attacked me because it was not the first time I ran my mouth doesn't really hold up because that was the first time I 'ran my mouth' and you acted the same way then.

You also drug the personal aspect in to it, yet again, and now your are incensed that I flipped out on you. You don't go poking a chained dog with a stick and expect it not to get mad. You can't antagonize and attack someone personally and not expect them to get mad either.

I agree about not poking a chained dog, I was thinking we as humans were on a different level than dogs.

I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but I thought you guys up there had 'thicker skin' than that. Hell, you act like I'm calling you an effing moron or a child molestor or something. Sure I may throw a small jab every now and then, but Jesus man!

Let's put it this way, if you were to take all the times I've said something similar to what I posted here (which over the last 5 years I can count on one hand by the way) and your responses to those comments and show those to 100 people, 99 of them would say you over-reacted in your response.

I ripped on Toyota for a cheesy fix. I didn't say all Toyotas were crap because of it, I just laughed at the sheer absurdity of a Lexus with zip-tied floormats. You went and drug something completely off-base in to it. If Ford did something stupid like that, I would have pointed it out as well.

Can you provide examples of where you've done this in the past? I didn't catch the thread you created when the cruise control thing was a big issue a while back. I tried searching, but didn't find it.

But you don't see that train of thought. You have your typical and quite common knee-jerk reaction to discredit me by attacking my character rather than offering a logical counter-point to my statements.

Attacking your character? Are you kidding me? I've never said anything bad about your character that I recall. If you find something to the contrary please let me know. Why would I attack your character just because I don't agree with you on something?

You attack the arguer instead of the argument and then you proceed to laugh at me and mock me for "over-reacting" to yet another one of your ignorance induced fits of narcissism.

I'm missing the part where I laughed at or mocked you, all I said is that i thought it was a tad harsh, how is that laughing or mocking?

Whether you can or can't rebut my argument doesn't matter to me. But if you can't do anything more than essentially say "here goes Jstas on another one his things again" then just shut the hell up because it's not constructive at all.

Take a look at my original post, I did say more than 'here goes john on one of his things again'. There were several points in that thread, other than that 1 comment. I still feel that the other two points brought up in that thread are valid, those being that it's a temp fix and that it's not THAT big of a deal for someone to just lean over and pull the mat back if it gets in the way. Should it have happened in the first place, of course not - my point was I think it's being blown way out of proportion.

concealer404

"Jstas bloviates yet again."


And for the record, i was not the tagger. But i was greatly amused at some of them.

Thom

Jstas wrote: »

They used a break away clip attached to the bottom of the mat so that customers didn't have to labor the idea of a grommet in their floor mat. For shame!

They could have done like Ford, stuck a piping wrapped grommet in the mat and molded a hook in to the carpet backing that protrudes through the pile of the carpet to grab the finished off grommet. Looks good, barely noticeable and the mat doesn't move.

Looking at the pic in your first post, that's exactly what they did. I see the grommet just in front of the zip tie.

The Scrutineer

jstas - assimilated has laid out a very compelling argument as to why you are an asshat. care to respond to it or are you going to hunker down and keep your head in the sand?

everpress

The Scrutineer wrote: »

jstas - assimilated has laid out a very compelling argument as to why you are an asshat. care to respond to it or are you going to hunker down and keep your head in the sand?

Really? Your first post is to egg on an argument? Seriously?:eek:

Ima call you a troll and let it be, mate. You keep doing what you are doing.

concealer404

It's an internet-wide famous FLAME WAR!!!!

Everyone get out your best keyboards and go to town!

Wow....

everpress

concealer404 wrote: »

It's an internet-wide famous FLAME WAR!!!!

Everyone get out your best keyboards and go to town!

Wow....

The latest Apple keyboards are good for this; the low profile means that you can type a bit faster... And I look cooler doing so...

BTW, concealer- get ready to clear some fridgespace for a suitcase of PBR. I swear Ima get up there in the not-to-distant future when it's good for you/your girlfriend and my wife gets sick of me.

Jstas

No, I'm not going to respond because I really don't have the energy to deal with someone who makes their own shill accounts just to posture for themselves. Besides, I've been misinterpreted concerning many points I made and I don't really care to go back and correct the poster as well as reiterate and clarify. The whole point here was to start an argument with me and I take issue with that.


One thing though, the survey says it has 46000 respondents. A vague number. Why? What's the break down of owners? How many own BMW's, How many own Hondas? How many own Toyotas? Do you realize how many vehicles were sold in this country in the years the survey covers? Millions. How can 46,000 respondents represent less than 1% of the total population and still be considered an adequate sample size? How can you tell me that their percentage numbers are accurately representing sample sizes? How can you tell me that they have an even number of respondents for each brand? How can you compare uneven statistics and put them in a linear list without showing the demographical data describing the data points? How? You can't...well, you can, your survey results will just be BS and fodder for people who take them as gospel without knowing the REAL data behind the conclusions.



Thom,
I noticed the grommet in the Lexus too but the article I read about the reasoning for the mat securing mechanism was referencing Toyotas only. But, at the same time, that Lexus mat has a grommet for a hook but there does not seem to be a hook in the grommet holding the mat in place.


concealer404, you have been on my ignore list for months. The only reason I see what you are saying is because others feel the need to tell me. You should just stop wasting your time responding to me. I've already written you off as nothing but useless noise.

And lastly, oh my Lord! What shall I do? People on the Internet don't like me! I'm devastated!

concealer404

everpress wrote: »

The latest Apple keyboards are good for this; the low profile means that you can type a bit faster... And I look cooler doing so...

BTW, concealer- get ready to clear some fridgespace for a suitcase of PBR. I swear Ima get up there in the not-to-distant future when it's good for you/your girlfriend and my wife gets sick of me.

Any time man, just say the word.

Hell, if you can cram your 11TLs in your car, i'll even supply the PBR.

mhardy6647

sucks2beme

Only way to stop this thread.

AsSiMiLaTeD

One thing though, the survey says it has 46000 respondents. A vague number. Why? What's the break down of owners? How many own BMW's, How many own Hondas? How many own Toyotas? Do you realize how many vehicles were sold in this country in the years the survey covers? Millions. How can 46,000 respondents represent less than 1% of the total population and still be considered an adequate sample size? How can you tell me that their percentage numbers are accurately representing sample sizes? How can you tell me that they have an even number of respondents for each brand? How can you compare uneven statistics and put them in a linear list without showing the demographical data describing the data points? How? You can't...well, you can, your survey results will just be BS and fodder for people who take them as gospel without knowing the REAL data behind the conclusions.

It's simple statiscal analysis.

Am I going to have an equal number of responses from each brand in the sample size? Of course not, because you don't have an equal number of each brand of car in the total population.

The real question is, "Do I have enough?". I'll get to that in a second, first I'll address potential concerns about sample tampering:

Although JD Powers isn't going to release their survey collection process because it's proprietary, they are very highly respected in their industry - they're simply not going to risk their reputation by biasing a sample or designing a methodology to produce pre-determined results. This is what they do, they're going to use the best sampling methodology (random, stratified, whatever) to gather the data needed.

Keep in mind these are survey results, not some guy at Consumer Reports or Ed Wallace walking around a car giving their impressions. Other than sample bias, which I contend does not exist with them, there's really no way for them to influence the results.

Also, when I look at reviews or surveys I find that most generally draw very similar conclusions about some brands of cars, and Toyota often falls into that category. When 5 people look at the same product and come to the same conclusion, that conclusion generally is more reliable than if one guy had looked at it - the same principle applies here.

So let's assume they're not 'out to get us', now back to the sample.

Remember the math from my earlier post, with a population of 300 MILLION cars (more on that in a sec), you only need a sample size of 16,640 to achieve a confidence level of 99% with a confidence interval of 1, that's about as tight as it gets, 95/5 is what's almost always used to keep sample sizes more manageable.

The 46,000 is nearly 3 times the size required for a 99/1 confidence. If I look at what's needed for the 95/5 confidence, that sample size is going to be 384 (it pretty much maxes out at that with any population size).

Now take that number, 384, and surely you'd agree that at least 384 owners of each brand got surveyed. Hell, I'd venture to say that at least 500 owners of each brand got surveyed, maybe even 1000, or 5000. The point is, as long as 384 or more got surveyed, we have a statistically significant sample.

As for the population count, I used 300 MILLION. The 2009 survey is for vehicles purchased in 2006. I believe there are roughly 300 million people in the US, so at the very most 300 million cars would have been sold in that year. We both know it's much lower than that, but I use that as a worst case.

You ask 'how can 46,000 respondents represent less than 1% of the total population and still be considered an adequate sample size'? I don't know what else to tell you, all the statistical analysis models out there say it is, I'm not making this stuff up. That sounds more like a fundamental questioning of the laws of statistics, probably better directed at a professor.

Was it Mark Twain that coined the phrase "Lies, damn lies, and statistics"...

AsSiMiLaTeD

And before someone chimes in with the usual 'put him on ignore' bit, I'm not doing that because he has alot of interesting posts and alot of knowledge - I'm not going to block someone out because i don't agree with them or they say something I don't like

I'm done with the personal issues with John, he can curse me and call me names as much as he wants, I've gone down that path for the last time here.

PhantomOG

Recently released info...

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/10/26/nhtsa-releases-new-info-about-crash-that-prompted-toyota-floorma/

Contrary to previous reports, the death of a four people and the largest recall in Toyota's history was caused by a compound of errors. The initial buzz/word on the virtual street suggested that it was simply an improperly placed floor mat that doomed CHP officer Mark Saylor and three family members when the Lexus ES350 they were traveling in got jammed open at over 100 MPH before crashing and bursting into flames. But it turns out it was more than just a floor mat.

First of all, the floor mat in question didn't belong to the ES350 (actually, the ES350 didn't belong to Officer Saylor -- it was a dealer loaner while his car was being worked on). The mats in the ES350 that crashed were from a RX400h. Not only that, they were those thick, all-weather hard rubber mats. Regardless, because the dealer had placed the wrong mats into the wrong car, there was no way to properly mount them. Also, it seems that the pedal design of the ES350 also played a role. The NHTSA discovered that, "Beyond the main pivot, the lever is not hinged and has no means for relieving forces caused by interferences." We think that means it can easily get stuck.

But that's not all. The NHTSA had also learned from a previous ES350 investigation that, "the Lexus ES braking system loses power-assist when the throttle is fully opened, increasing braking distance fivefold." That's not good. And the brakes had signs of heavy wear and damage, "Rotors were discolored and heated, had very rough surfaces, had substantial deposits of brake pad material, and showed signs of bright orange oxidation on the cooling fins consistent with endured braking."

Additionally, because the Lexus has push button start, the operator must push the button for three seconds before the engine will shut off. A piece of info obviously and sadly not known by Officer Saylor. The San Diego County Sheriff's office is leading the investigation and has not yet released their final report. We'll keep you posted on that, but as they say in plane crashes, looks like the holes in the swiss cheese all lined up.