Stuff I've Googled,
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what I'm Googling now,
why I'm Googling,
and other fascinating information.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
What is J.D. Power & Associates?
Search: jd power
Why: Every car commercial mentions how the car was rated by J.D. Power & Associates, like that means anything to me.
Answer: A global marketing information services firm founded in 1968 by James David Power III. The firm conducts surveys of costumer satisfaction, product quality, and buyer behavior for industries ranging from cars to marketing and advertising firms. The firm is best known for its customer satisfaction research on new-car quality and long-term dependability. It offers automotive forecasting.
Source: Wikipedia
The More You Know: The company is a business unit of the Information and Media Group of McGraw-Hill. I used to work for McGraw-Hill's archenemy, Pearson.
The declaration that American cars are narrowing the gap is somewhat misleading: While it is true, as a whole, they are making gains -- the real numbers that matter to consumers is the individual cars in a particular class. For example, the top three classes of cars are: Truck, Mid-sized sedan, and SUV. Toyota dominates in these classes. Just because Americans can do cars that few people drive better -- isn't exactly the best accomplishment.
ReplyDeleteI tell all my friends to buy foreign still. And to use the power of competition to get a good price (ignore clever marketing). This is the best process to use when you are ready for a car:
http://excarsalesman.typepad.com/