For more than a decade, the Ford Focus was an also-ran among small
cars, unable to keep up with far-superior compacts like the Toyota
Corolla, Honda Civic and even the Hyundai Elantra. Distracted by its
success with trucks and SUVs, Ford Motor didn’t invest what was needed
to keep passenger cars like the Focus in the game. Now, however, Ford
has gotten serious about fixing the car side of its business, and the
Focus, redesigned for 2012, is vastly improved.
How much better is it? The Focus went from middle of
the pack to the segment leader, according to Total Car Score, a new
online resource that aggregates car reviews from multiple sources. The
2012 model scored 80.68, tops among compact sedans and wagons, up from
72.73 for the 2011 model it replaced, according to Karl Brauer,
editor-in-chief of Total Car Score. (The average score for 2012
compacts was 74.68.) The Focus’ leap from one model year to the next
was the highest of any new vehicle, said Brauer, making it the most
improved car of 2012.
The consensus among car critics is that the European-inspired Focus
gets kudos for its sporty handling, supple and controlled ride and
excellent steering feel along with a stylish interior that’s loaded
with upscale amenities and advanced electronics. At 31 mpg combined
city and highway driving, it’s also fairly fuel-efficient. But it’s not
perfect: a quirky automatic transmission and cramped rear seat were
common complaints. Still, sales of the Focus were up 12.5 percent in
April, showing consumers like it too.
Auto reviewers, like movie critics, aren’t always unanimous in their
points of view, however. A clever feature to one might be a pet peeve
to another. Some reviewers put more weight on vehicle performance,
while others emphasize safety or fuel economy or affordability. An
overall consensus would be useful.
That’s exactly what Brauer is attempting with Total Car Score,
which, he said, aims to be the Rotten Tomatoes of the auto industry.
Rotten Tomatoes is a website that culls movie reviews from top film
critics and assigns a “certified fresh” or “rotten” icon depending on
the percentage of reviews that are positive. (More than 60% positive
earns the fresh label.) It provides movie-goers with a quick overall
opinion of a flick without having to research dozens of individual
reviews. Likewise, Total Car Score wants to simplify the task of
researching a car purchase.
“Nobody ever says I need more information about automobiles,” said
Brauer, pointing to the vast amount of automotive content already
available on the Web. “There are a bunch of good sites out there. I
brought them all together.”
The problem is not all car reviews use the same scale. Some use a
1-10 scale while others use bubbles, circles or stars. The Insurance
Institute for Highway Safety uses words to describe its crash test
results: good, acceptable, marginal or poor. No matter the format,
Total Car Score takes the ratings from nine well-known automotive
authorities including Consumer Reports, Edmunds.com, Consumer Guide and
J.D. Power & Associates and converts them into a simple percentage
representing what the car could have scored from each source versus
what it did score. Then it merely averages the number from all of these
sources to get a vehicle’s Total Car Score.
If it seems oversimplified, that’s the point. This is the lazy man’s
way to research a car. The vehicle’s absolute score is less important
than how it ranks relative to its peers in a particular segment. That
at least gives you a starting point to build your shopping list.
What I like about Total Care Score is that it’s totally transparent.
It’s not trying to steal anyone else’s content and it shows exactly how
each car’s score was calculated. There’s also a “scoring report card”
for each vehicle.
2012 Ford Forbes
2012 Toyota Yaris
2012 Camry Hybrid
2012 Toyota Camry
2012 Cadillac SRX
