I am 80 years old and have been reading consumer testing reports since before Consumers Union existed. My only reason to look at their reviews is that a little knowledge is better than none at all. Over the years, I have wished there was a "Consumer Reports Reports" publication that reviewed the testing and publication policies there. I believe that they have an image to uphold so they can never admit a mistake. It seems that some unsuccessful technical person that distrusts American big business sets up their testing, using a bunch of high school dropouts as technicians. Their statistical interpretations are suspect to me. (I am a retired radiochemist with a lot of statistical experience). And they love to find some cheap product that seems to be better than expensive ones. That being said, they are honest and are trying, so I do look at what they have to say from time to time (I haven't subscribed for years, just borrow from friends, family, or the public library when I need to).

I credit Consumer Reports with helping me find the Gardenweb Forums...Not because they recommended them, but I was so woefully disappointed in what they had to offer after paying for a membership, I searched the internet for better and found the Appliance forum. It may be single stories, but many others chime in, and there are other posts to search and read. There are so many brands and models that Consumer Reports never tests, but will still say things like "high end appliances aren't worth the expense." Which ones and to whom and under what circumstances? Their tests are often a one-shot deal and they judge the appliances on only certain aspects...Not all that are a priority in my house. I consider the opinions and experiences of multiple, real-life users/owners here as more credible. Consumer Reports used to be all we had, but the internet gives us much more and better resources now, I think.

I understand your frustration. GardenWeb is my first source for research.

I've subscribed on and off for decades and renewed my membership just for our kitchen remodel. I bought my dishwasher, microwave and wall oven (love all three) on their recommendation. I know a little about how they arrive at their scores... several years ago I received an emailed questionnaire that asked very detailed questions on household purchases, appliances, finishes, service and repairs. This must be how they achieve satisfaction scores. As for their Best Buy recommendations, they must have an algorithm that considers user input and their own testing. Wouldn't it be fine if CU would reveal their practices in this area?

I don't find CR to be very useful. The criteria they use to evaluate products aren't usually the ones that are important to me. OTOH, I think Cook's Illustrated's reviews of small appliances are good. They tell you exactly what they tested and rate the products on different tasks.

I got a questionnaire from CR once, too, but the way the questions were worded, and the way I had to answer them would've made it sound like we loved the Maytag fridge we hated. There wasn't any place, as I remember, to tell about the specific issues we had. It constantly had breaking pieces that were replaced by ordering and reordering parts from Maytag, who had outrageous shipping fees, but since we always fixed it ourselves, and it didn't require calling a repair tech, I wasn't able to explain how much it cost us.

Thank you all for your comments. I felt a little stupid posting at all on the topic; kind of gratuitous. But it helps hearing that I'm not the only one with all these thoughts -- everything you all said I do agree with as well. And I appreciate the reminder about Cooks' Ill. -- forgot about them. And BTW, I, too, am a statistician and wonder what ever could be the harm in just letting us *know* how they arrive at their results? The idea oughtn't to be to create irreproducible, inscrutable findings but to collect a lot of data not easily obtained by individuals alone, then walk readers through the steps of how to analyze all that information. sigh. This would permit us to tweak overall ratings to match our personal requirements and priorities.

Yes - that makes sense about their bias regarding cost. Price is a difficult thing to evaluate and they do seem to choose for us what we would consider to be a good value, heavily weighted toward the inexpensive. Then as a surrogate for longevity and quality they use repair statistics, but that doesn't somehow capture the long-term value or quality well, I have found. Again, it's not completely clear to me why not. But I appreciate the observation that it's possible the collection of personal anecdotes available nowadays online actually could be a reasonable substitute. Perhaps the seeming-value from this gardenweb is explicable in terms of things just changing; this forum is what the internet affords us and perhaps it really is an improvement over testing, at least obscure testing...