One must consider that during initial buying considerations you cannot test every car you think you might like or like to own. Unless you have nothing but time.

CR is biased to foreign cars and do look at vehicles in a purely "toaster" type of way. Once you understand this you are easily able to compare sports cars to sports cars. I used CR for a big part of my "mid-life, 40 year-old, hair on fire" shopping and look where I ended up. So to some extent "Thanks CR"!

I would read their major beefs and go see for myself. They were spot on for the Solstice, (poor seating position, can't reach mirror or seat controls etc.)glad I didn't do that. The predicted reliability for the XFire was rated better that average and you guys confirmed that. They also said it was a crappy ride and was too noisy in the cockpit. When I went to see for myself, it was just fine for me.

Sorry to be so windy, but from a 40 year old without money to waist on a mid-life mistake CR helped me spot the polished turd in their bucket of all domestic sports turds.