Yet another tire thread - PILOT SPORT ALL SEASON 4
MBWorld Fanatic!
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 1,032
Likes: 77
From: Wash. D.C.
'20 S63
Just an FYI. That's an "advetorial" not an article. That site is what we call an affiliated marketing website. It's just there to get people to buy stuff. While it is reporting on what Discount Tire's tests revealed; the site exists strictly for the purposes of earning a commission on purchases based on their ability to drive clicks and sales. Once you click the link from their site they earn a commission, and they earn a higher commission if you purchase at that time. But even if you don't buy on the first go around, they still earn a commission from the website they refer you to. They put a tracking cookie on your computer so that even if you don't click directly from their website to the partner website, they still earn a commission on the purchase. In this case; they compared a "captive" product to an openly available product to help increase the sales of the captive product. Captive because it's only available at Discount/America's Tire. Since it's a Conti, it probably is a nice tire, and based on Conti's website it's designed 100% for your type of usage. As you know, I work in marketing. I really don't like sites that "pose" as legitimate sources of unbiased information only to be extensions of advertising. But that's the world we live in. I just thought I'd let you know. Now I really sound like a mister know it all.
MBWorld Fanatic!
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 1,825
Likes: 792
From: Pacific Northwest
2001 S600 V12 Sold, 2011 Jaguar XFR Sold, 2017 S550 4-Matic, 2018 S63 AMG Sedan
Consumer Reports is totally unbiased. They actually anonimously purchase all the products they review so there's no incentive for them to rate something better or worse. I think they are excellent for consumer products like appliances and electronics. Their long-term reviews for cars is real and relevant. However, I don't their basic new car ratings. They aren't biased in any way but they count any consumer complaint/problem equally. That means that any car that has new features are going to rate poorly. More than half the complaints on luxury cars has too do with infotainment systems. While those complaints are valid, they carry the same weight as a major mechanical failure in their tabulated objective report. That's not fair to me. But overall, they're an awesome source. On the other hand, "Consumer Digest" is 100 marketing posing as a review site.
