Cars.com Best Bets Not For Sale
Today’s Wall Street Journal featured a story on how Consumers Digest — not to be confused with Consumer Reports — charges automakers to use its Best Buy awards in their advertising. While the practice seems suspect on its face, the fact that those payments are Consumers Digest’s top revenue generator makes the awards even more questionable.
Because the story addresses that publication’s “Best Buys,” we thought this would be an opportune time to point out that none of Cars.com’s awards — from our Best Bets to our Lifestyle Awards to our Platinum Awards — are for sale; they are chosen strictly by our editors, with no outside influence from anyone.
Before our editors weigh in on which cars get nods, the nominees must meet predefined standards: “To qualify as a Cars.com Best Bet, models must meet three quantified criteria: a Good rating in Insurance Institute for Highway Safety frontal-offset and side-impact crash tests, average or higher reliability ratings, and average or higher fuel mileage within their class.”
In fact, just a couple of years ago an automaker asked us point-blank how it could get more of its cars into our Best Bets. Our answer: “Build better cars.”
You might see Cars.com’s name mentioned in an automaker’s advertising, perhaps touting our Platinum Awards or, in one case, when Toyota recently publicized our American-Made Index to highlight its Camry sedan. All of these mentions have been requested by the automakers and must be checked for accuracy by our Editorial department before they can be used. No money ever changes hands.
