NY TIMES Critic: Likes Azera, Predicts Improvements

An interesting review.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/automobiles/autoreviews/11AUTO.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

 

That's also about how I'd rate my Sonata vs. the Camry. Close, but no
cigar. However, the value aspect made the difference for me. I
certainly wouldn't pay anything close to equal money for a Sonata vs. a
Camry. If the difference had been less than 10%, I'd have bought a Camry.

I'm also not surprised at the customer satisfaction rating. I've never
bought a Toyota or Honda so maybe they do the same thing, but I've never
been bribed as heavily as I was by my Hyundai dealer to give them a
perfect score on the surveys I received after buying the car. Free oil
changes, discounts on accessories, etc. They were very aggressive about
this. I don't mean aggressive in a terribly negative way, but this was
mentioned to me several times by both the sales person and the service
manager.

So, I suspect that Hyundai's are much higher quality cars than in the
past, but I also believe that the scores are being actively manipulated
by Hyundai. I never had this sort of behavior from Chrysler or GM.
I've never bought a new Ford so I have no experience there. And my only
Honda was bought new in 1984 and nothing of the sort happened there either.


Matt

 

I think everyone now is actively trying to manipulate customer satisfaction
and even reliability scores.

 

No doubt. I'd just never seen anything as aggressive as Hyundai. They
are 2-3X more aggressive than I've ever seen before, just just a little
bit more aggressive.


Matt

 

Well wouldn't that be the idea - to make the customer happy? I know its
a rather odd thought, especially if you've ever been around a Chrysler
dealer.

JS

 

Yeah, but they are manipulating the satisfaction scores on the initial
product by BRIBING the customer with free oil changes, accessories or
whatever. You could make the argument that those free items ARE making the
customer more satisfied, but more than likely they are skewing the results
of initial quality and satisfaction reports.

Eric

 

My sales lady offered me a free fill up if I would show her my
questionnaire. She said nothing about whether the ratings had to be good.
Maybe there is an implied quid pro quo, but I didn't feel there was.

 

Hyundai seems to be very concerned about customer satisfaction.
I remember buying American cars in the old days, once they sold the
car, they didn't care what you thought. That attitude doesn't work
when you are a foreign maker trying to capture a customer base.

Hyundai seems to ride roughshod of dealers on service too.
A few week after I bought my Elantra, I took my Accent to
the dealer to get the timing belt changed. Someone must have
made a mistake entering it in the computer because someone
from Hyundai, not the dealer, called me asking why I was replacing
the timing belt on a car that was less than a month old. I told them
it was a mistake, the belt was changed on my Accent not the Elantra.

- Mooron

 

The idea is typically to evaluate the initial quality of the car, not
the quality of the bribes from the dealer. I've yet to see a J.D. Power
"dealer bribe" satisfaction index, yet that is essentially what is being
measured at my Hyundai dealer.

Matt

 

So just why else would she want to see the survey? Bob, you really
aren't THAT naive are you?


Matt

 

Do not some other makes' dealers also give-away freebies a la oil
changes, car washes, and ye old tire rotations?

(s) hopefully not a mickey mouser nor malcolm balderidger nor J.D.
Power believer, but i do have respect for those colorful dot-dot-dot
CONSUMER REPORTS ratings, even though CR has seemingly given hynudai
some short shrift/unfairness in write-ups over the years as noted
previously in this n.g.

 

My salesman filled mine out for me. I never even saw the answers. But in
all honesty, I was completely satisfied with my experience so I didn't
really care.

Eric

 

If you want to stoop to name calling here, I think you are about as cynical
as I am naive. So take *THAT* you cynical old curmudgeon!

All seriousness aside Matt, I don't quite get what you mean. It's pretty
obvious to me that my dealer wants to know how they're doing.

If the survey is filled out in ink, shown to my sales lady, sealed in an
envelope, and mailed out to Hyundai, what's so wrong with that?

Now,,, I admit that a free tank of gas for showing the survey COULD possibly
influence someone to give the dealer the benefit of the doubt. But changing
bad to good, no to yes, 5 to 10? I don't think so!

 

My only survey to date was to rate my dealer service. I recently got an oil
change for $28, and Hyundai sent me a survey. I will fill it in honestly and
mail it. I may just do it on the Internet, but then, I get no free gas. That
seems like wasting perfectly good gas to me!

Matt, be careful. Bribery takes 2. If you are accusing bribery, you are not
only accusing the dealers of offering bribes, but you are also accusing the
owners of accepting them. I for 1 take that a little bit personally. Were
you offered a bribe? If so, did you take it? What makes you think other
owners have less integrity than you?

Haven't got a JD Power survey yet, but if I do, it will be filled out with
the highest integrity. If my dealer wants to see it, they're welcome. But
they won't be filling it out, I will.

 

Matt's right. Maybe not in your particular case. But dealers offer bribes
regularly, and customers accept them regularly.

 

I'm sure that Hyundai puts a lot of pressure on the dealers for their sales
and service quality. But if the car bombs in the JD Power survey, it's the
manufacturer's fault, not the dealer's. (except for certain dealer prepped
items, of course)

 

In my case, had I not been happy with the initial quality (it took more
than 6 weeks to get the survey in the mail) I would have rejected the bribe
offered and filled out and mailed the survey for myself.

I just write that so I don't sound like a complete idiot for letting them
fill it out for me. I was, and still am, extremely happy with my Sonata.
And my bribe was an oil change. I normally do them myself, so taking it to
the dealer was actually more of a hardship as far as time and energy are
concerned. I did want to see what, if anything, I was missing by not using
their service.

Eric

 

Actually, receiving the call is a good thing. That means someone at the
dealer or at Hyundai saw something odd and inquired about it, looking out
for your best interests.

 

Really, they could fill my service survey it out for me too. The only
stipulation would be that they admit they used the wrong oil (20W50 oil
instead of 10W30.)

But my oil problem had nothing to do with JD Power. They can fill that
survey out for me too, stating the only complaint is the k-thunk in the rear
suspension. If they give me free gas, I won't feel a bit guilty.

 

No, I've accepted no freebies from the dealer. I never even got the
survey on the dealer that I was told to expect. I did get one on the
car from J.D. Power and I filled it out honestly. They only gave room
for 4 design defects as I recall, so I couldn't list them all.

Bribery doesn't take two, at least not by any definition I've ever seen.
If you try to bribe a police officer, the officer doesn't have to
accept the bribe in order to arrest you for bribery. Here's one sample
definition, but others I've seen are similar. Where did you get the "it
takes two" definition?

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/DictionaryResults.aspx?refid=1861592654

Matt