The Elio Engine

[Sam]

Who actually owns the rights to the engine, Elio or IAV?

 

[Smitty901]

Who actually owns the rights to the engine, Elio or IAV?

That very well may depend on if the bills are paid or not.

 

[Johnapool]

I will never give a blanket statement about anything especially American made vehicles. I have seen first hand the failures of the 2.7 V6 from Mopar, along with failed 3 speed automatic transmissions from the Generation 1 Caravans, to the 3.0L Mitsubishi V6 motors with the bad valve rings causing your motors to smoke like a full hog barbecue going down the highway.

But I also think Consumer Report is skewed towards the foreign brands Toyota and Honda in particular. There was a time when Hondas and Toyotas were just rust buckets after about 5 to 10 years depending on the road salt you drove through each winter. Everybody has their faults, its how you learn from your mistakes going forward and how you correct the mistakes that you have that matters.

The Consumer's Union is the least skewed reviewer of products in the world. They BUY the items tested, accept no advertising, and have no shareholders. The product reliability information comes directly from subscribers who fill out surveys.
The seeming "skew" represents actual reporting from car owners who have either good, average or bad experiences with their particular make and model.
I have personally owned Datsuns and Nissans, Toyotas, Isuzus, and Mazdas. Never had a rust-bomb, maybe due to where I didn't live, never had a major repair, never had a transmission rebuilt, always had someone wanting to buy my old rig when I bought a new one.
I could type for hours telling you about the Dodge truck, Ford truck, Chevy Tahoe, Ford van, etc., and all the repairs they required.
I have great hope that Chrysler, General Motors and Ford are making better vehicles these days. I keep looking at some of the newer models and really like the looks of them. The Ford Flex is one I really like.
When you can drive a Ford the equivalent of 6 times around the world without a tap being turned, that'll be a good day for American car makers.

 

[Jambe]

Johnapool, I believe you have it backwards. Consumer Reports is the company that accepts no advertizing and Consumer Union does.

 

[Ty]

I will never give a blanket statement about anything especially American made vehicles. I have seen first hand the failures of the 2.7 V6 from Mopar, along with failed 3 speed automatic transmissions from the Generation 1 Caravans, to the 3.0L Mitsubishi V6 motors with the bad valve rings causing your motors to smoke like a full hog barbecue going down the highway.

But I also think Consumer Report is skewed towards the foreign brands Toyota and Honda in particular. There was a time when Hondas and Toyotas were just rust buckets after about 5 to 10 years depending on the road salt you drove through each winter. Everybody has their faults, its how you learn from your mistakes going forward and how you correct the mistakes that you have that matters.

We know you mean piston rings... and I feel your pain with the stupid 2.7L.

 

[Johnapool]

Johnapool, I believe you have it backwards. Consumer Reports is the company that accepts no advertizing and Consumer Union does.

You are sorta right- read on----Wikipedia says:
"Consumers Union is a non-profit organization based in the United States whose mission is to advocate on policy issues related to telecommunications, mass media, vehicle safety, health care, product safety, financial services, investing, food safety, housing, and energy and utility deregulation.
The organization published the Consumer Reports magazine since its founding in 1936 until 2012. In 2012, Consumers Union created a spin-off company named Consumer Reports to continue its mission of product research, testing and reporting via it's Consumer Reports magazine (as well as via an online website), while the Consumers Union company dedicated itself exclusively to advocacy matters.
Consumers Union has four advocacy offices that attempt to influence policy that affects consumers. They are located in Washington, D.C.; San Francisco, California; Austin, Texas; and Yonkers, New York. Employees based in these offices "testify before federal and state legislative and regulatory bodies, petition government agencies, and file lawsuits on behalf of the consumer interest.""
And this is from the Consumers Union website: https://consumersunion.org/about/
Consumers Union is the policy and action division of Consumer Reports. We work with our million plus activists to pass consumer protection laws in states and in Congress. We hammer corporations that do wrong by their customers, and encourage companies that are heading in the right direction.

Most of all, we listen to consumers. Join us! We will regularly ask about your experience in the marketplace — the marketplace for products, health care, financial services and much more. Have your credit card rates gone up? Did you buy a product that turned out to be on a recall list? Did your visit to a hospital result in a dangerous infection?

When we get ready to work up new, consumer-friendly policies, the first thing we do is find out what’s going on out there directly from you. Then we put our experts on the case. We think about what a better system would look like, and who could make the key changes to get us all there. Then we launch a campaign for reform.

Our campaigns have already helped reduce hospital infections, lower credit card rates and improve card services, expand access to health insurance, improve the security of your financial information and much more. Got a new issue we should be working on? Tell us about it! Want to support our work? Donate here! Or just sign up for our action alerts so you can take direct action on one of our current campaigns.

Notice no mention of advertising....

 

[RKing]

as far as more Dyno testing, I would expect them to continue Dyno testing of random engines during the early production run. Dyno testing is frequently done ,on an audit basis, to varify production engines are still preforming like the initial test engines and to get an average baseline of the product. Also provides good imput to the "future model" data stream, predicing long term failure mode data. The audit interval extends as time passes and ultimately is stopped as the product and production facility stabilizes. We cold test every engine we build. Cold test is done with an electric motor turning the engine while measuring a long list of operational parameters. Test takes less than a minute but will catch many "issues" before they get to the end user and show up as warrenty. Hope Elio does this , but it does add cost to he product. A trade off in upfront cost vs warrenty expense. Customer satisfication is a major decision point in the risk vs reward on production cold test as well.

 

[Edward]

The Consumer's Union is the least skewed reviewer of products in the world. They BUY the items tested, accept no advertising, and have no shareholders. The product reliability information comes directly from subscribers who fill out surveys.

Where there are human reviewers, reviews are going to be biased based on the personal views of the reviewer. There was a study done a few years ago that showed that Consumer Reports are skewed, towards larger brands. Looking at reviews of washing machines, it was found that large name brand manufacturers received higher ratings than the SAME washing machine badged under less well known brand. That would be like claiming that the Corolla was a better car than the Geo Prizm.

 

[Jambe]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Reports

"Consumer Reports is an American magazine published monthly by Consumers Union since 1936. It publishes reviews and comparisons of consumer products and services based on reporting and results from its in-house testing laboratory and survey research center. They accept no advertising, pay for all the products they test, and, as a not for profit organization, they have no shareholders. It also publishes cleaning and general buying guides. It has approximately 7.3 million subscribers[2] and an annual testing budget of approximately US$21 million."

I have to admit I thought Consumer Reports and Consumers Union were competitors.

 

[Charlie G]

large name brand manufacturers received higher ratings than the SAME washing machine badged under less well known brand.

It seems to me that all things being the same, I would prefer the one from the known brand.
Company reputation and longevity come into play for me when choosing a product, especially something as expensive as an appliance.