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I stopped believing in them even before they rated the BMW E28 "black dots" for the electrical system. Upon questioning, it turns out owners (with pocket protectors) were driving their cars through the carwash with the antenna mast deployed, which bent the mast and made the antenna no longer retract. That got listed as "Electrical problems" with CR. Note the evolution to the imbedded-in-glass antenna on the subsequent E34.
Even before that they rated the Porsche 914 as conditionally unacceptable because if you did something like their test with (let's say) 40psi in the RF tire, 22ps in the LF, 44psi in the LR, and maybe 20psi in the RR, the car handled "dangerously". Likewise they rated the BMW 2002 conditionally "unacceptable" because with a trunk full of luggage to the maximum GVW with 5 passengers on-board, they didn't like the rear clearance and included a photo showing the diff would barely clear a pack of Pall Malls sitting on edge under the car. At that point I stopped believing they even knew anything about toasters or dishwashers, too. At some point they got into rating Hi-Fi components and said they all sound the same.
I figured the poor ratings for BMW were always because their typical Honda Accord member who at some point "graduated" to a BMW like you guys wear your Rolexes (obviously for the jewelry aspect—not to tell time) and for the money they spent they expected bland, appliance-like, reliability and were passionate only when something went wrong.
Perhaps the new survey shows the average late-model 330i today is really just a good appliance?
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