In the 100-plus year-old history of the motoring press, countless cars have been panned. Their makers have reacted in one of three ways: they have either refuted the verdict, often trying to “punish” the offending reviewer, ignored it and went on with their business as if nothing happened or made improvements when the time came to revamp the car.
Honda got pretty upset about the press’ reaction to its 2012 U.S. market Civic to the extent that it gave it a makeover just in time for the 2013 model year. Introducing a significantly improved model 18 months later must be an industry first – but then again, reviews like the one published by Consumer Reports apparently were too much to bear, even if sales soared.
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