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Toyota, Ford and Honda again top Consumer Reports Car-Brand Perception Survey

Consumer Reports has released its annual Car-Brand Perception Survey, and the list looks awfully familiar. The top six brands are identical to last year's results, with Toyota, Ford and Honda continuing to occupy the podium. All told, Toyota walked away with 133 points, putting it 15 ahead of second-place Ford. Honda jumped 26 points this year, narrowing Ford's lead to just four points in total.
Consumer Reports polls buyers from across the country on how they see multiple brands in seven categories, including quality, safety, value, performance, design/style, technology/innovation and environmentally friendly/green. Researchers then combine the findings to come up with the total brand score.
While value and performance remain important to buyers, CR found quality and safety are still on top when it comes to significance. Scion and Mitsubishi found themselves at the bottom of the pack with the worst score of all, tied at just six points. Ram, Fiat and Mini filled out the lowest five with scores of seven, eight and 10 points, respectively. You can read the full press release below for more information, or head over to the Consumer Reports site.

Enterprise customer billed $47k for Mustang stolen from rental lot

A weekend rental of a Ford Mustang GT Convertible sounds like a nice, relaxing way to burn some gas, but one Nova Scotia woman's two-day rental is turning into a months-long headache. In early October, Kristen Cockerill picked up the Mustang from Enterprise Rent-A-Car, and she returned it the following day as stipulated by the rental contract. Unfortunately, she dropped the car off on a Sunday - a day on which the particular Enterprise office is closed - and the car ended up being stolen overnight.
Now, two months later, CBC reports that Cockerill received a bill from Enterprise for the full replacement of the car totaling $47,271 (a base 2014 Mustang GT Convertible currently costs $40,349 in Canada). As it turns out, the fine print in the contract says that the renter is responsible for cars dropped off after hours until it can be inspected the next business day - this is also reflected on the key drop seen in the news report video, which states "vehicles returned after hours are the responsibility of the renter until inspected on the next business day."
It's not clear how much, if any, of that amount Cockerhill will be responsible for once her insurance company gets involved, but if the insurance company refuses to pay, Enterprise will bill the amount to the credit card she provided during her rental. While this ordeal is far over for Cockerhill, it's a good reminder for the rest of us to always read the fine print.

KBB 2013 Brand Image Awards has some obvious and oddball winners

The sixth edition of the Kelley Blue Book Brand Image Awards have crowned a wide range of winners - in a couple of cases the recipient of the laurels might say more about KBB users than they do about the actual winner. Compiled from the responses of more than 12,000 shoppers on KBB.com over the past year, there are 13 categories broken into non-luxury, luxury and truck segments "representing the combined wisdom of the American car-buying public."
The award categories have been revamped this year, with some dropping off, some new ones appearing and at least one other given a new term. What isn't surprising is that Honda won Most Trusted Brand for the second year running, Best Value Brand for the third year in a row and took Best Overall Brand, which wasn't on last year's list of awards.
On our own shores, in the non-luxury categories Chrysler got Most Refined Brand and Buick took Best Value Luxury Brand. Neither one of those marques won anything in last year's Brand Image Awards, while Cadillac, which won Best Interior Design Brand and Best Comfort Brand last year - those awards disappeared this year - went home without a single accolade.