IntelliChoice.Com and AutoPacific Team up to Announce First Annual Motorist's Choice Awards

Business Wire, Sept 27, 2006

Awards Recognize Vehicles with Highest Driver Satisfaction and Lowest Cost of Ownership

Infiniti QX56 Wins Highest Rating among All Classes/Vehicle Models

CAMPBELL, Calif. -- PRIMEDIA's IntelliChoice.com, the online source for automotive ownership cost and value analysis, and AutoPacific, the industry source for automotive owner satisfaction ratings, today announced the results of the newly established Motorist's Choice Awards for the 2006 vehicle model year.

IntelliChoice.com and AutoPacific created the Motorist's Choice Awards to determine the vehicles that delivered both the highest satisfaction and lowest cost of ownership. The collaboration between the two respected firms, who have each been authorities on the U.S. auto market for the last 20 years, takes selected owner satisfaction data from AutoPacific's surveys of new car and light truck buyers and combines it with IntelliChoice.com's rating methodology to create a new measurement that speaks to both the hearts and minds of car buyers.

"While the economic analysis of car ownership remains very importantCoit can save or cost you thousands of dollars over the life of the vehicleCoit is also important to recognize owner satisfaction as another significant influencer in vehicle purchases," said James Bell, publisher of IntelliChoice.com. "With these awards, we have identified the vehicles that delight emotionally and economicallyCokey points to consider when buying a vehicle."

"Ratings of owners' satisfaction with their new car and truck illustrate how well the vehicle is satisfying the emotional and practical needs of the driver," said George Peterson, president of AutoPacific. "Satisfaction is more than simply how well a product is screwed together and there are many more dimensions to the equation. Combining AutoPacific's satisfaction results with the value analysis from IntelliChoice.com provides the car buyer with an outstanding benchmark to use when selecting a new vehicle."

WINNERS

For the inaugural awards, IntelliChoice.com and AutoPacific identified 29 winning models by segment and class. The top-ranked vehicles in their respective categories are:

  -- Cars: Lexus LS430
  -- Trucks: Chevrolet Avalanche 1500 (2WD)
  -- SUV/Crossover: Infiniti QX56
  -- Minivans: Honda Odyssey

In terms of overall rankings, the Infiniti QX56 SUV scored highest in both driver satisfaction and lowest cost of ownership, followed closely by the Lexus LS430 sedan.

METHODOLOGY

The Motorist's Choice Awards were calculated by combining IntelliChoice.com cost of ownership data with AutoPacific's customer satisfaction survey data.

AutoPacific surveys 45 different vehicle ownership attributes, and of these, 38 product-focused attributes were used. Each of the product attributes generates a score between 5 and 25, allowing a maximum possible score of 950, which is then normalized to 1000. The actual scores range from 495 to 756.

The remaining seven attributes are cost-ownership-focused and addressed by IntelliChoice.com: Depreciation, Financing, Fuel, Insurance, Maintenance, Repairs, and State Fees. IntelliChoice.com rates vehicles based on the vehicles' total ownership cost against the vehicles' total expected cost.

To merge the IntelliChoice.com data with the AutoPacific rating system, IntelliChoice.com ranked each model within the 29 different classes. A conversion formula was then used such that the best model within the IntelliChoice.com analysis received the equivalent score as the best model within the AutoPacific analysis, and the worst model received the equivalent score as the worst model within the AutoPacific analysis. This conversion was done for each class.

The final step was to combine the AutoPacific score with the converted IntelliChoice.com score. This was accomplished by creating a weighting for each class based on the AutoPacific importance scores from the 45 attributes. The average importance score from the product attributes were weighted against the average importance score from the ownership cost attributes. The AutoPacific and IntelliChoice.com scores were combined through multiplying the AutoPacific Score by the product attributes weighting and the IntelliChoice.com score by the ownership cost attributes weighting, and then adding the two scores together.

About IntelliChoice.com

Part of PRIMEDIA, the country's leading targeted media company, IntelliChoice.com is the market leader in automotive ownership cost and value analysis. Founded in 1986 and celebrating its 20th Anniversary, IntelliChoice.com is committed to empowering consumers to make better purchase decisions by providing independent and essential automotive information and car-buying tools. Through IntelliChoice.com consumers get the help they need to research, compare, configure and price vehicles. The site also connects buyers to the buying alternatives of their choice, including vehicle manufacturers and online buying services.

About AutoPacific

AutoPacific is a future-oriented automotive marketing and product-consulting firm in its 20th year of providing specialized automotive research. Every year AutoPacific publishes a wide variety of syndicated studies for the automotive industry. The firm also conducts extensive proprietary research and consulting for auto manufacturers, distributors, marketers and suppliers worldwide. Company headquarters and its state-of-the-art automotive research facility are in Tustin, California, with an affiliate office in the Detroit area.