We subscribe to CR and do find it useful to get an overview view of what features to look for etc... But I find reviews by users more helpful. I think CR tests appliances under ideal conditions (which isn't our kitchen :)

Same here, have the CR online subscription and noticed that the CR testing does not jive AT ALL with what CR reviewers that own the appliance are saying.

One thing you need to keep in mind is that in general a person is FAR more likely to post a review about something they bought if they HATED it than if they LOVED it.
So you have to take that into account, but if basically everybody hates it and the same complaints are being stated by most everyone then you have to take that into account.

I actually prefer reviews from people that own it than from CR.

Three independent variables limit the usefulness of appliance reports in Consumer Reports.

1. As CU (Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports) freely acknowledges, frequency of repair is evaluated completely independently of the Ratings. A chart of users' past experience with the brand is given, but it does not figure into the Ratings criteria. Moreover, with companies being bought and sold at a dizzying rate, the frequency of repair record is irrelevant in many cases. Most Maytag appliances out there were manufactured by a completely different company than the company that manufactured the Maytag you may see in a showroom today.

2. The filter criteria to determine which brands and models of an appliance are tested and which are not tested are very important and seldom revealed. Many readers assume that the appliance that gets the highest Rating is the best appliance in its category in the marketplace; but better brands and models may not have satisfied the filter criteria and therefore "do not exist" so far as the Ratings are concerned.

3. Most importantly, engineers, as a group, are wonderful people to give you a precise answer to a narrow question, properly posed. But engineers, as a group, are generally terrible at formulating the questions to be asked; and CU is dominated by engineers. Are you buying a clothes dryer? The engineers at CU apparently believe that the single most important criterion for a clothes dryer -- outweighing all other factors -- is where the door hinge is located, on the side or on the bottom, because there is a chance that a bottom-hinged door will cause the user to bark his or her shin on the door. (I am NOT making this up.) Therefore, every bottom-hinge clothes dryer automatically will fall lower in the Ratings than the lowest rated side-hinge dryer. That is engineer-think; some of us seek out bottom-hinge clothes dryers because we find them advantageous in catching dropped wet clothes before they hit the floor. CU says that we are wrong and they are right.

CR should be used as a starting point but DO NOT BUY because of their high ratings. It is the reviews from common consumers from multiple websites who have purchased the appliance and rated accordingly. If too many reviews from Loew's/Home Depot/Sears/P.C Richards, etc... are ranting because of the same problems, STAY FAR AWAY from it! Word of mouth means more to me than a bullseye that fails faster than a falling star!

My problem with CR is that kenmore manufactures nothing yet constantly gets high ratings for product produced by Whirlpool, LG and others yet the whirlpool & LG do not receive similar ratings for the same product. When you look at every catagory gas ranges, Elec ranges, refrigerators, dishwashers, laundry Kenmore is always at or near the top

One good thing I'll say about CR is that they reported on the Energy Star 'scam' that exists (or existed) for refrigerators. That is, they reported that some manufactures were stating their power usage without the icemakers activated. LG (and it's derivatives) use a separate compressor/cooler for the ice maker (French door models in particular). CR noted that with the ice maker turned on, the unit drew up to twice the power reported by LG. DOE (EPA?) pulled their EnergyStar certification and promised to tighten up their certifications. CR started presenting their lists with the power used as a reported item for comparison.

Still, I use CR to give me relative values of items on their lists. But I pay more attention to what others say.

One thing to remember about CR is that they don't keep an appliance around for very long. Many people have bought the top rated appliance only to have them break down in a year or so, something CR doesn't talk about.

And don't get me started on their car ratings...

quadalupe...I hear what you are saying about the Kenmore getting good ratings even tho their brand name brothers and sisters are getting much poorer marks. That is simply one more reason that I do not give a lot of weight to CR ratings and reports.

As I mentioned before, I had a Honda CRV which is rated good by CR(as all Honda's blindly are) and it was probably the most expensive vehicle I owned for maintenance and repairs. (not to mention rusted way too fast).

I honestly think that to a large degree, people are lemmings, and when they read that a product is good, they think it must be and then refuse to admit it to others(and themselves) that they got smoked.

I have subscribed to Consumer Reports for close to 50 years and I have used their ratings for many, many purchases. Yes, you do just need to use them as a guide, and not automatically buy the top-rated models, as the reasons the model was top-rated might not be the reasons most important to you. That said, what people need to realize is that CR does not take advertising and so their ratings are much more independent than others you may read. And if something is rated very low, or even not acceptable, there is usually a darn good reason for it which should be enough to make you very wary of the model. I almost always buy models that were well-rated in CR (or ones that are comparable), though certainly not necessarily the "best" rated, even though I know CR seems to be looked down upon on GW.

Do I also read anecdotal reviews of things I am interested in? Of course. But I also keep in mind that the reviewer may or may not have a vested interested. In this internet age, there is so much information available and a smart consumer takes advantage of more than one source when doing his or her research.

I would just go to the library and check it out. Not worth buying. The focus of CR is different from the typical GardenWeb poster. CR would never review Bluestar. Also, despite their supposed noncommercial, objective reporting, they are still a business and aren't above a bit of deceptive marketing. Did you ever notice that they consistently trash "pro style" appliances, but everytime, what do you see on the cover? A pro style range!

I check out CR when buying appliances or cars but I often find they do not test "high end" products. I also check out places like Amazon or Epinions to see what actual consumers think. I would place more weight on a slew of negative comments than a checklist with unimportant criteria.

I think the CR's findings are based on "low price" trumps everything else first; that is why Kenmores are found at the top of most lists there.

And, I too have an on-line subscription there.

I agree that CR does not often test "high-end" products such as Wolf, Sub-Zero, etc., so it is certainly understandable that many GW posters don't pay any attention to it. But even if you are only interested in high-end appliances, you can still find a lot of useful information regarding what to look for in appliances, and other kitchen materials as well.

As for me, I wanted to buy my appliances from my local independent appliance dealer (with its own repair department), rather than from a chain such as Pacific Sales, and felt that mid-range appliances were more what I was interested in anyway. And, since the local dealer carried plenty of brands (GE, Bosch, Kitchenaid, Electrolux, Frigidaire, Whirlpool, FP, etc.), I found the information in CR very helpful. I used several other sources as well, something which is a lot easier to do than in used to be. But for anyone to just assume that CR is not useful is, I think, a big mistake.

As for Kenmore, I don't believe I have ever bought an appliance (other than a vacuum cleaner which was only available there) from Sears. I don't find that they have better prices than my local dealer, and they seem to "mark things up" so they can have frequent sales.

I think CR used to be a great resource, but several years ago they had a major editorial/management shift. THe mag has never been the same since. I dropped my subscription after being a long time devotee. I felt they left out a lot of brands and tons of detail in the specs of what they are comparing. Trying to cram a ton of stuff into a small space and it lost value IMO.

Try consumersearch.com. It consolidates multiple review sources, CR included.

For electronics, I love CNET.

User reviews are suspect now that mfrs and competitors submit fake reviews for their own angle. You have to really be cynical to filter out that junk.

I used CR as a guide but not the ultimate decision maker when making my choices. One problem is that what they rated did not cover everything I was looking at.

I have an online subscription as well and found it a great place to start and got some useful information from there. Could I have found similar useful info elsewhere? Probably. But it's an easy and convenient resource. Do they rate every appliance I'm interested in knowing about? No. So I don't blindly buy everything that gets top marks.

Definitely take their ratings with a grain of salt, as with all reviews and ratings you'll find online. Good luck!

I agree with wendydb. It has become weirdly bland, dumbed-down in places, boosterish. I grew up on the old CR, which was much more critical.

CR has also picked up some of the less wholesome tricks of e-business: spamming your e-mail and trying to make renewals automatic. After my current sub with the online version are up, I'll stop.

All that said, if you're doing a bunch of purchases of things they review, it's worth subscribing to get their take. Every now and then you get something like the recent dishwasher detergent testing that is just what you need.

I have aways felt that a little bit of information is better than no information at all. That said, mis-information is the worst of all. CR suffers from a know-it all/never made a mistake attitude. They also have given their best and worst ratings based on environmental issues rather than performance. I can test my own toilet paper for a few bucks and they are wrong for me. Still, I would check them out if the information were available for free. Nowadays I just google the item with the words ratings and best and see what happens.

I have found outright errors on CR product information. Notified them of it, received an acknowledgement but a correction was not posted. Dropped subscription to their magazine years ago. Subscribed online for less than a year. Did not like that they required an active ccard on the account for auto-renewal. My card expired during the course of the subscription, they badgered to update the info every time I logged in. I e-mailed to advise that I would not be renewing and access was immediately rescinded even though I had some time left on the PAID subscription.

That magazine is a useless rag. The past three times I logged in (dishwasher, washing machine and snow blower) to the online version (with the sis-in-law's account as I'd never pay for a subscription) I left after a few minutes, frustrated, with no really useful information. I'm not sure how expert they really are anymore and it seems a lower price is the be-all-end-all for them. I would guess that they get one of a product and run a series of tests, in which they set the parameters and controls.

They try and quantify too much information and try and compare uncomparable things--i.e: this product performed better, but we recommend another one after factoring in price. Huh?

Avoid that publication and research on your own. Forums such as this have rendered CR antiquated and unnecessary.

Consumer Reports is simply another alternative source of information. Its greatest weakness is the lack of detail they provide in HOW they arrive at their ratings. They do not reveal the numerical weighting, test subscores, and how item price plays into the final reported numbers. Often missing are details about methods, installation particulars that could affect outcomes, lab environment, ancillary items such as consumable products used in testing, etc.

Yes, CR is something less than optimal and as a member I have communicated my displeasure with them about not being more forthcoming with details.

On the other hand, Consumer Reports is NOT in any manufacturers pocket, does not accept ad money, buys all of the test items on the open market, and tries, within its budgetary constraints, to test items that people want to know about.

The egalitarian necessity of concentrating on mass-market appliance alternatives over custom kitchen high-end gear is apparent when one realizes they can test 5 side by sides for the price of one Sub Zero. Testing 5 side by sides will likely provide useful information for more people than the one Sub Zero they toss in. But as tastes migrate to more expensive gear, CR does try to keep up.

In any case, I still use CR all the time and appreciate how handy they can be when it comes time to evaluate a product. I use my phone to look up stuff all the time and I find the results useful far more often than not. But I am a tester and I understand testing methods, including the sometimes frustrating limitations of operational testing, which is what Consumer Reports does. I think they are a good adjunct to have available for consultation when evaluating a purchase, and should be used in concert with other sources, including enthusiast forums like Gardenweb and other internet outlets.

I think advice to "avoid" CR is not necessarily the best advice, personally, but suit yourselves in that regard.

Years ago consumer reports seemed to be fairly accurate in their ratings. I cancelled my subscription a while back because they give rave reviews for things that other people all over the place have had problems with. Some of the information is given in what I dub "non answers" sometimes as well.

I had to chuckle about the dryer hinge location....who gives a rip about the hinge location?! I want something that works and is reliable!

I purchased a Whrlpool refrigerator about a year ago that has the freezer on the bottom (not the french door style). CR lists it as having a "mediocre" ice maker. Mine has the best ice maker I've ever had in my life, and it has been a wonderful fridge.

They had also listed the GE Profile gas range as the top rated range a few years ago. It is a decent range, but the uneven heating of the sealed burners is awful. Why don't they rate something useful, such as how the thing actually cooks.

I find CR useless and a waste of money.