I have been reading consumers reports (more or less) since 1972. They tend to put a very high weight on reliability. The luxury appliance brands such as Thermador and Viking often require far more repairs than the mid-range products (I have owned Thermador, a lot of parts broke off that refrigerator). If a high-volume manufacturer made a mid-range product that was unreliable, they would be out of business very quickly due to warranty claims. CU will tend to pick something at the 65th percentile in the market - the product that EVERYBODY is buying and it's successful because the manufacturer gives good value AND MORE SO reliability for money. American brands with a longterm (50-year) reputation for reliability are Kenmore, KitchenAid (=Hobart), and Whirlpool/Maytag (although we just got totally screwed and had to write off a $1300 Maytag over after 2Y which is why I'm on this website tonight.) Ralph Nader is the most senior consumer advocate in Amerca and he killed off the Chevy Corvair which was "Unsafe at Any Speed" with his book, and he probably saved 100k lives, any consumer advocacy organization should be PROUD to have Ralph Nader on their board of directors! CU also has some stupid biases, such as "Subaru always wins our 4WD car tests before we've even bought our cars" and "Camry is the best american midsized car, always has been, always will be." Another is, "Tesla Model 3/Y touch screens are so horrible and impossible to use that nobody could possibly operate a Tesla" (truthfully the touch screen is a revolution allowing Tesla to upgrade the car, fix MANY recalls, and even upgrade performance from 0-60 in 3.5s to 0-60 in 3.2s for my Model 3P+, and they also added Netflix / YouTube / Spotify / Pandora streaming via over-the-air download.) It used to be (early 1970s) that CU would actually publish measured specs of the items they reviewed (SNR, THD, radio sensitivity, etc.). They became intellectually dishonest in mid 1980's by changing to a rating system of "well below", "below", "average", "above average", and "well above average". They did this because were making mistakes and they were getting sued. I repeat: THEY DID THIS TO COVER UP THEIR MISTAKES. They did an absolute hatchet article on Bose Speakers and I heard Amar Bose justifiably complain about CU in a speech at MIT. They don't have guys in labcoats doing tests those are just actors posing for "style" photographs. Bose speakers do not have sound that "wanders about the room". CU's president claimed, "Nobody takes our magazine seriously It's an entertainment magazine!" to Amar Bose! When CU tested bicycles (my area of expertise) they made a truly horrific blunder by not categorizing models into narrow price ranges as it's a get-what-you-pay-for market and the main differentiator is how frameset geometry and wheel/tire choice impact ride comfort and handling. Just about the only CU reports that are intellectually honest these days are the reader surveys because CU is not making any measurements nor are they coming up with magic weighting schemes to over-emphasize subjective usability measures (such as Tesla controls) in the overall "product score". So, rely on them for product / brand reliability, especially among cars!

I'm in the process of updating our island and for budget reasons we went with Thomasville. I only need 3 cabinets- a trash cabinet, a standard single door cabinet and a 3 drawer pot/pan base. Well the finish was awful. It's a stain finish and it was as if they didn't fully cover the top edge of the drawers and there was something stuck in the clear coat finish on the finished end panel. There was a chip out of the bottom of one drawer and some kind of scratch on another one. We called home depot and they are ordering a new drawer base so that's another 3 week wait time and delay in our project. I hope the next one is acceptable. After we got home and I inspected things further and I thought even the trash bin finish could have been more uniform on the top edge of the pull out, but then I feel like I'm getting picky so I'm accepting it. Fingers crossed it was a fluke.

This is CR's ranking. CU Recommended Hoover Dual V Steam Vac All Terrain w/ Spin Scrub F7452-900 see here $270 CU Recommended Hoover Steam Vac w/Spin Scrub F5914-900 see here $170 CU Best Buy Hoover Platinum Collection Carpet Cleaner F8100-900 see here $400 CU Best Buy Bissell ProHeat 2X Healthy Home 66Q4 see here $300 CU Recommended Bissell ProHeat 2X9200 see here $250 CU Recommended Bissell ProHeat 25A3 see here $150 CU Best Buy Hoover Steam Vac w/Power Brush FH50010 see here $90 CU Best Buy Bissell QuickSteamer 1770 see here $80 Rental carpet-cleaning machines overall score CU Best Buy Rug Doctor Mighty Pro * see here $30

practigal... would you provide the information where CR "knocked the frdge on top bottom freezer, as not the preferred configuration" [sic] please? I bought a fridge-on-top model specifically on the recommendation of CR. It's been a very good model. Just to check my memory I just looked up their buying guide and here is all they say about these bottom-freezer models... "Sales of bottom-freezers are growing fastest as a group. Widths run from 30 to 36 inches for most. Claimed capacities can approach 30 cubic feet or so though usable space doesn't quite match that of comparable top-freezers. Pros: Bottom-freezers offer the convenience of an eye-level refrigerator. Some now have the in-door ice and water dispensers that debuted on side-by-side models.. Cons: You have to bend to reach the freezer--but you'll typically use the refrigerator much more often. Bottom-freezer fridges cost more than top-freezers overall." Did I miss where they 'knocked' the bottom freezer type? I don't think they are suspect at all. In fact, they are very direct and upfront. Consumer reports takes no advertising dollars. They collate and discuss options and features. It offers reasonable pros and cons. And, thankfully, it includes price as a metric and a concern. User reviews are subject to manipulation and are only relevant when you've already compared and narrowed your search. If you aren't aware that manufacturers pay people to write reviews, you are woefully uninformed. And, if you think you are well-equipped to discern the manipulation, then you have no idea of the power and scope of the psychology behind advertising. I defend CR because they are the last unbiased protection from companies who would take financial advantage of uninformed consumers.