Stacys

I noticed that in the US&news ranking of best cars and trucks, the 08 RDX finished first in the Luxury Compact SUV category. See the rankings here.

http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com...rankings/suvs/

But for the reliability category, the RDX only socred a 5, a mediocre ranking, from the JD Power survey of initial quality and dependability. Does anybody know why this is the case? I thought the RDX was very reliable?

wrestrepo

up to par with the other competitors...I also wonder what they are measuring (rather how?)...better yet, Who??

Mokos23

JD Power tested out probably the 07 RDX, which was the 1st model year of the car, so it had bugs in the 1st model yr of the car..

Animagix

many of us own an 07, myself included. a little over 10k miles and have yet to take it to the dealer for anything problematic. (knock on wood)

I too am curious to see what went wrong for them to give it a mediocre reliability rating. I beat my rdx up over the winter and occasionally redline the thing onto a highway ramp. Still a very solid ride thus far.

MMike1981

what was the most common overall problem? if u look at the first year tsb's, could be the stereo issues...alot of posters have reported having the twiddlers replaces, or the stereo..... or the dead battery....

portwashguy

It must be due to the Plainsman's cracking windshield.

XLR8R

I wouldn't get too worked up over JD Powers. They are for-profit and in the business of selling their awards to participating companies. They actively train interested companies in how to score well in their surveys.

For the Initial Quality Survey (which is only the first 90 days of ownership) they had only 97,000 responses -- a mere 7.5% of the responses that Consumer Reports gets.

The RDX lowest score in that survey was 2 1/2....um....balls, for Powertrain Quality Design which is defined this way:

Since very little goes wrong in 90 days my guess is that some new owners are dull drones who never expected the stiff, sporty ride from a luxury SUV.

XLR8R

Further evidence of JD Powers marketing and profit interest is that Mercedes Benz is highly rated.

This is the same Mercedes Benz whose entire product line is rated "worse than average" or "much worse than average" by Consumer Reports and fails to earn even one recommendation for 2007.

(....and the windshield has never cracked on my '68 Mazda Bongo.)

creativeguy

How did the Saturn Outlook place in comparison to the RDX?

MMike1981

can we not entice this guy, please.

ThePlainsman

They rated the 2008 RDX, not the '07. It got an 8.4 score overall. By the way, the Saturn Outlook got an 8.6 score overall. Its twins, the GMC Acadia got an 8.9 and the Buick Enclave got a 9.2. Like I said, don't hate on GM. Acura just got passed.

Here's the reliability scores:

'08 RDX = 5.0
'08 Outlook = 4.0
'08 Acadia = 6.0
'08 Enclave = 9.0

Looking at the reliability scores and then the overall scores, what's so special about the RDX compared to GM's Lambda platform SUVs?

Don't tell me...you can't handle the truth?

Loving my RDX AND my Outlook!

XLR8R

In the Performance and Design (APEAL) study it scored better than average.

But in Initial Quality it reeked in every category -- the Outlook highest score was the RDX lowest score -- GM problems in only 90 days.

And GM has still not sent their Outlook seats to the IIHS for rear impact testing. Could it be because the second and third row middle have NO head restraints?

To be fair though, it is recommended by Consumer Reports, but not for the highest safety rating (which the RDX receives).

(Sorry Mike, I find this an interesting comparison.)

brizey

JD Powers customers are the car companies themselves, not us. Therefore, their information is intrinsically suspect. They are nothing more than a marketing company.

brizey's rule: looking which way the money is flowing tells you all you need to know about a business relationship.

Animagix

reminds me of the Car and Driver and BMW partnership.

BleuM&M

C'mon, XLR8-R, 'fess up, your Bongo has never been out of that garage. And the paint is still perfect!

One of my favorite things to do is cave for the sub offer to CR with the free extras, get the Buyer's Guide and Guide To Growing Alpaca, then cancel the sub and keep the guides without paying $.01. Unfortunately this happens but once a year and there were a couple years that they must have gotten wise because I didn't get the offers.

The year CR became my enemy was the one in which they road-tested my beloved '74 Fiat X-1/9, wherein they declared the steering DANGEROUS because it was much too responsive for the 'average American driver.' They went on to condemn the braking because stopping distances were so short it was hazardous not only to the X-1/9 occupants but to the public in general, due to mayhem involved when following vehicles had no recourse but to plow into the rear end of said X-1/9 or swerve into oncoming traffic or mow down peds on sidewalks. Oh, the humanity. Thank Ralph CR never thought to do lane change or road course runs.

Since there were a few other exotic vehicles on the road that could perform in a similar manner, the only conclusion I could draw was that Fiat was vilified because they sold an Italian-designed, 2-place mid-engined targa that spanked sports cars costing multitudes more (except in the straight line drag) that was within the reach of Joe Nose-Picker, who had no clue on how to pilot said vehicle and therefore needed to be protected from hisself.

As for JDP, let's face it, Honda/Acura rules. Right now I'm driving a rental until my ECU comes back from Hondata - brand-new Malibu LT - the best Malibu I've ever seen - but it pales to any Accord or Civic in ways too numerous to mention. Even my RDX gets better mpg than the Eco-trash mill under the hood. But, GM, keep going - you're on the right track!

darth62

I know I sound like a broken record on this issue, but the most trustworthy source of data (on reliability, at least) is Consumer Reports. JD Power is a consultant to the industry and their surveys come up with all sorts of crazy outcomes - one year declaring Jaguar to be one of the more reliable makes out there.

And, because I happen to have a Ph.D. in a social science, and work as a survey researcher at a major university, I am in a position to evaluate surveys and the resulting data. I consider CR's data to be top notch - without peer in the industry, really.

CR rates the RDX as "better than average" reliability. The only "below average" issue are problems with the audio system. In fact, if you were to take out that one area of problem, the rest of the car would be "much better than average."

You can fault the RDX for a minor amount of turbo lag, a harsh ride, and an interior that uses lots of hard plastics (I'm not saying I fault the RDX on this stuff - I'm saying that I at least see the logic in these criticisms) - but not on reliability. For a first year SUV with AWD and lots of techno bells and whistles, the reliability of the RDX is remarkable.

MMike1981

the long n short of it is, if you look through JD Power's past, i bet you could find some kind of award to support just about any brand/model out there.

the things i find about Acura reliability in general, is that, if something is wrong, chances are its NOT a fault of the powertrain or mechanical failure. if its has problems with a stereo, a seat, a display etc...thats fine with me because those are swappable parts and usually dont have detrimental results to the vehicles operation. I can live with ticky tack issues, I wouldnt be able to live with differential problems (like the new CRV when it arrived) or engine lights (like the CX-7) or things of that nature. THOSE are reliability problems...a bad stereo? bad battery? leaky windshield washer....ehhh i can take those

scudzuki

SWEET! Let us know your seat-of-the-pants impression (or better yet, post the dyno charts). Have you done any other mods? I've been running the CP-e intake (gains or no, it sounds cool) but the only reason I did it before the reflash is less downtime... now that we picked up a 3rd vehicle (Ford F150, flame away) the reflash is only one positive unbiased review away.

Joe

XLR8R

We leave the compound once a week on a townie run for organic groceries and ammunition. Then we dust a few RDXs and Outlooks on the way back. Poor suckers.

Oh yes, they have quite the hand-wringing, leftist history:

They even got Robert Oppenheimer in trouble:

Yep, those were the Nader days, and that bass-ackwards thinking is still prevalent today in the leftist concept that sturdy SUVs are dangerous because people in tiny eco-boxes get hurt. It's unfair!

However -- as darth62 points out -- their research is without peer today, and I believe they are far less political now. My own product experience closely mirrors their results -- try an LG Tromm Steamwasher!