[SoCalGuy]

All in all, nothing new that came of this - anyone on FB is very familiar with the issues/strengths/weaknesses of the Karma mentioned in the video.

[video=youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osI2e0sSDA0[/video]

I am really perplexed about the conflicting weight numbers for the Karma... some say 5,100lbs, others 5,300lbs to as much as 5,600lbs. This video claims 5,395lbs.

 

[WOJO]

Some good - Some Bad

 

[Michael]

is that shadow they have? looks to dark for shadow

 

[Dutch]

It's Deep Ocean. I thought that colour was hard to get (well, at least to paint), but they simply bought it off a dealers lot.

 

[Fabulist]

It certainly seems like CU is getting an authentic Karma experience which is familiar to the members of this forum. Here is a link to their initial write-up after they got their car back.

 

[svp6]

I think it is the first report to say that visibility is poor and interior quality is not up to the class. People on this forum seem to praise the visibility - perhaps different driving position (too high / too low)? Anyone having interior quality issues - the exterior body panel misalignment is well known. I thought most folks here said flawless interior.

 

[musique]

I would say:
Visibility through the rear view mirror is poor.
Visibility elsewhere is excellent.

Interior is excellent but yes exterior body panel isn't great

 

[9xclubchamp]

I have no interior issues at all. Rear view mirror view "appears" limited buts it's actually a full view.


---
I am here: http://tapatalk.com/map.php?kmorig

 

[Sigurd]

I agree. Interior quality is as good as my Lambo and rear view is much better. I don't understand reviewers sometimes. Of course the C-pillars will obstruct rear view in a car with this design. It also sucks in mud and does poorly in steep hill climb in gravel?

 

[SoCalGuy]

It's Deep Ocean. I thought that colour was hard to get (well, at least to paint), but they simply bought it off a dealers lot.

Not true - in the first video/write up they did, they said they've had a deposit for over 18 months before finally getting delivery. Not the 3-4 year wait that some of us had, but certainly not just strolling in and buying one off the lot.[hr]
Some of us are (in)famous... check out the Consumer Reports post which cites a comment I made on FiskerBuzz as well as Siliconkiwi... Hopefully CR will balance out those comments with some of our more positive remarks.

http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2012/03/consumer-reports-is-not-the-only-fisker-owner-to-experience-bad-karma.html

 

[LonePalmBJ]

Some of us are (in)famous... check out the Consumer Reports post which cites a comment I made on FiskerBuzz as well as Siliconkiwi... Hopefully CR will balance out those comments with some of our more positive remarks.

This illustrates my frustration with the press, and my hesitation when I see fellow owners sharing experiences on this forum. The overwhelming majority of the approximately 10,000 posts on FiskerBuzz are enthusiastic and supportive of the car, the company and owning a driving a Karma. The car isn't perfect of course but I think it is deceptive and disingenuous to cherry pick a dozen of the more critical posts and ignore all of the positive comments, often from the same posters, just to make a point. CR is allegedly objective, but car reviews are subjective by nature, and it seems this particular reviewer has decided he's not going to like the car.

If your quotes were used in the article I encourage you to comment on the original CR post with your fuller experience and perspective. If they are going to use your words out of context and without attribution, they can at least let you set the record straight.

 

[SoCalGuy]

Some of us are (in)famous... check out the Consumer Reports post which cites a comment I made on FiskerBuzz as well as Siliconkiwi... Hopefully CR will balance out those comments with some of our more positive remarks.

This illustrates my frustration with the press, and my hesitation when I see fellow owners sharing experiences on this forum. The overwhelming majority of the approximately 10,000 posts on FiskerBuzz are enthusiastic and supportive of the car, the company and owning a driving a Karma. The car isn't perfect of course but I think it is deceptive and disingenuous to cherry pick a dozen of the more critical posts and ignore all of the positive comments, often from the same posters, just to make a point. CR is allegedly objective, but car reviews are subjective by nature, and it seems this particular reviewer has decided he's not going to like the car.

If your quotes were used in the article I encourage you to comment on the original CR post with your fuller experience and perspective. If they are going to use your words out of context and without attribution, they can at least let you set the record straight.

I think that's right - it is the duty of the reporters/journalists to portray an accurate and representative view of the customer's experience. That is not to say that we (the owners) should censor our comments since I think FiskerBuzz is really the only place where we can share our good and bad experiences with the Karma and sense-check with other owners to see if these issues/experiences are common and what solutions others may have found for a particular issue (e.g. heat shield bending, fender flares, dash/nav issues, etc). So for all the journalists reading FB out there, know that nearly all of us love the Karma and while our ownership experience has thus far not been perfect, I for one am still happy to be a Karma owner and am rooting for Fisker to succeed.

 

[ct-fiskerbuzz]

... CR is allegedly objective, but car reviews are subjective by nature, and it seems this particular reviewer has decided he's not going to like the car.

Nobody is ever completely objective. The folks at CR try, but sometimes they fail pretty badly. The other thing to keep in mind with CR is that they are never "enthusiasts" about anything. If they were reviewing remote controlled airplanes, they'd be doing it from the perspective of "parents who bought one for the kid to play with for a little while before he gets bored with it" so they would not care whether it accurately modeled the WW1 biplane it was based off of, etc. (If that biplane tended to crash if flown upside down, CR would gripe about how the toy "tends to crash if flown upside down" because, hey, who cares about getting the details right, it's for your kid who's going to fly it upside down....)

If you know a lot about anything they review you can see where they get all the details wrong. On the other hand, if you don't care about the details either—if you're buying an appliance you're going to use strictly for utility purposes—their reviews are pretty good.

 

[Fabulist]

I think part of the problem with the reporting on this car outside the niche blogs and specialty publications is that they don't really know what to make of this car because it is so unlike all the other cars they have reviewed. They want to use the template they have used for all the other cars they have previously reviewed such as , power, acceleration, fuel economy, range, etc. and they end up making a mush of the whole thing because the Karma does not fit these templates. It's a little like having a music journalist do a review of a movie. He/she would have a lot to say about the sound track, but may not be able to properly critique the cinematic elements or the lighting. It's going to take some time for journalists to even get the vocabulary to be able to make sense of a car like the Karma.

 

[Dutch]

It's Deep Ocean. I thought that colour was hard to get (well, at least to paint), but they simply bought it off a dealers lot.

Not true - in the first video/write up they did, they said they've had a deposit for over 18 months before finally getting delivery. Not the 3-4 year wait that some of us had, but certainly not just strolling in and buying one off the lot.[hr]

When I read this sentence a few weeks ago ("The magazine bought the car new from a Connecticut dealer last Friday") I assumed they went to a dealer and simply bought a car that was available. My bad.

 

[doug]

I think people understand Consumer Reports for the publication it is. Their main concern is reliability. Can't fault them for reporting specifically on those sorts of issues.

 

[Fabulist]

I think people understand Consumer Reports for the publication it is. Their main concern is reliability. Can't fault them for reporting specifically on those sorts of issues.

I think their broader mandate is value and whether the item being tested is worth the money. Reliability is one part of that inquiry, but so is usability, safety, energy consumption (in case of powered devices), performance, and overall utility. They are pretty clear on how to rate a new blender or mower or ICE-powered car. With the Karma, they are in new territory.

 

[Michael]

just googled for today videos on the karma and found it on FoX.. I really dont like Fox news

 

[svp6]

I think part of the problem with the reporting on this car outside the niche blogs and specialty publications is that they don't really know what to make of this car because it is so unlike all the other cars they have reviewed. They want to use the template they have used for all the other cars they have previously reviewed such as , power, acceleration, fuel economy, range, etc. and they end up making a mush of the whole thing because the Karma does not fit these templates.

I don't think CR should use a different template for Karma. They are most likely to hit the average consumer taste, and if you look at sales figures their top picks sell very well. That being said, a purchase at this price range is more emotional - who really NEEDS a 100k vehicle?

Somehow all the cars I had lately were rated poorly by CR at the time I purchased them (Merc SLK, old but not forgotten VW Passat, Audi A4, BMW 335). Conversely, I found most cars rated top by CR profoundly boring (Toyota Camry / Prius, Infiniti M45, Lexus of all sorts). Does not mean CR is wrong, just that they are looking for the average, and my personal taste does not match theirs.

I would actually say that CR testing the Karma shows a lot of enthusiasm - don't know if there are that many 100k+ cars they evaluated (don't see CR road test for Maserati, Bentley, Ferrari, Aston Martin). I appreciate their input as it gives me an unbiased opinion of the build quality and reliability. It certainly will not be the most important factor in my purchase. Customers in this rarefied price range are fortunate enough not to think how much will a small repair cost (or for gas price is for that matter); they may take into account though how often the car brakes down.

 

[ffcars]

I agree. Interior quality is as good as my Lambo and rear view is much better.

Yes, but your Lambo is 8 years old. I'm not knocking your Lambo; I love the Gallardo's! But saying the Karma is as nice as your car would be like trying to comparing your Gallardo to a Diablo's interior. Your Gallardo blows away the Diablo's interior by a mile!!!! And the Karma should blow away your Gallardo.

Go look at a 458 or Avantador to compare your car to something that's just came out and you'll see a big difference in 8 years of improvement.

The interior of the Karma is nice, but it doesn't match the quality, smell, finish of high end Mercedes, Lexus, BMW, etc. And I don't expect it to meet the standards of a Bently, Ferrari, Lambo, Audi R8, Aston, etc.

I don't mind the interior, but I'm not that picky. My wife is and she has many complaints about it. I wouldn't want to compare it to many other luxury cars. I personally wouldn't pick it as the best in class or even close to the top.

There are so many things they missed on the inside; no memory seating buttons, no heated seat buttons, small cup holders, poor user interface (no buttons for a/c-you shouldn't have to push screens to just change the temp), you shouldn't need the car to be running to open the glove box, no storage tray in front of the shifter buttons, no dc outlet on the dash, poor navigation quality, poor screen visibility during bright sunlight, no hard drive, no dvd player, and they should offer more colors for the inside. We wanted black/gray leather or all black leather. But if we wanted leather, we bought black/tan. It doesn't look great on our silver car--but we wanted leather and that's the only choice that came close to looking OK.

I have a few minor quality issues that I wouldn't settle for in a Mercedes or BMW. The dash wood came with a scratch and the wood feels like it ws never wet sanded. Push on the rear seat light and you will find that it's not attached to anything. The seats are squeaking when I get in and out and it sounds like I'm breaking the side cushions, the seat leather is already showing signs of stretching, and I hear some weird rattle coming from the rear window area from time to time (I can't pin it down).

Again, I'm mostly happy with what we got. But it's not the quality many buyers in this price range would expect.

- Bill