I'm Not Above CR, Uncle Fred

College football season, SuperBowl, Tour De France, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition, Consumer Reports car issue-- things I look forward to during the year.

I love to get it and see how poorly some of the cars are doing then rave about how good the imports are doing. I email my friend DR as soon as we both have our issues so we can rip on Fords and share our shock and awe about how ANYONE in the U.S. can possibly think it's logical to buy a Jeep.

However, this year was different. According to CR, my beloved Nissan seems to be getting a little worse in reliability with each passing year. Not sure what those guys are up to at Nissan.

Now, I take my CR very seriously and I still stand by it. Despite my uber positive experience with my Pathy I will not play Uncle Fred. In psychology we referred to it as the "man who" phenomenon and I love it. People will dispose of tremendous amounts of scientific material because they knew a "MAN WHO smoked for 40 years and never got lung cancer" or "my Uncle Fred has a Ford and never has a lick of trouble with it."

So I play the numbers. In fact, my mother-in-law has had 3 Ford Explorers in a row and has had nearly zero trouble from them. But you know what-- those Fords are statistically pieces of sh$% and she's been pretty darn lucky in my opinion. Perhaps one reason is that she drives her car at the speed limit at all times and never breaks 65mph on the interstate. Me on the other hand, I give my stuff Hell. I'm very aware of my gas mileage at 85mph and am familiar with the governor on my car (kicks in at 104 mph).

So, when it comes time to buy another car in 3 or 4 or 5 years, Nissan is going right back on the table with everyone else and we'll start the shopping process all over again with a clean slate.

I wish I could say the same thing about my dog, but those damn Weimaraners are off my list forever.