高价低值的8款豪华车

重质不重型

    《消费者报告》（Consumer Reports）杂志的汽车评测人员常被讽刺为60年代“超自由主义者”的遗老遗少，因为他们只关心一件事，那就是管理有限的资源。换句话说，无论是洗衣机、擦窗器还是汽车，他们最青睐的永远是最便宜、最简单的解决方案。

    事实上，《消费者报告》杂志的工作人员所关注的远远比这些东西重要，他们关注的是商品的价值，而且还制定了一套创新性的方法来为消费者衡量汽车的价值。首先他们会算出一款汽车5年内的每英里使用成本（折旧和油费是其中最大的两项开销），然后由杂志社内部的驾驶员进行试驾，对汽车性能进行打分。另外他们还会根据读者的反馈计算汽车的预期可靠性，最后得出一个价值分数，将其与平均分数进行对比，以体现某款车型相对其他车型的价值。

    《消费者报告》的价值分数清楚地列出了10大汽车类别的最高价值车型和最低价值车型，可以说这种排序方法独一无二。“最佳汽车排行榜”到处都有，但“最差汽车排行榜”却很少见，因为没有哪家媒体敢得罪潜在的广告商。但《消费者报告》并不接受广告，所以他们没有这个顾虑，敢于秉笔直言。

    在《消费者报告》给出的成绩单里，小型的亚洲轿车得分很高，因为他们的质量和续航里程都比较出众，而豪华或准豪华的轿车和SUV排名较为靠后，因为它们折旧率很高，燃油经济性差，而且尤为惊人的是，许多豪车的预期可靠性也很低。可见，一个上档次的品牌和较高的价格不一定能代表汽车的真实价值。《消费者报告》的排名有力地提醒了消费者：购车有风险，千万要谨慎。

Substance over style

    The car testers at Consumer Reports are often caricatured as granola-eating ultra-liberals left over from the 60s who are concerned with just one thing: managing finite resources. In other words -- the cheapest and simplest solution wins, whether it's washing machines, window-cleaners, or cars.

    In fact, the Consumer Reports folks are focused on something a lot more important -- value -- and they've come up with an ingenious way to measure it for car buyers. They figure five-year operating costs per mile (depreciation and fuel are the two biggest expenses), add in a road-test score from their own drives, and calculate predicted reliability based on a readers survey. Then they come up with a value score that compares a given model to the average car.

    The calculation provides a clear ranking of the best and worst values in 10 categories that is unavailable anywhere else. You can find "best car" lists everywhere. "Worst car" lists, on the other hand, are rare, because nobody wants to offend potential advertisers. But Consumer Reports doesn't accept advertising, so it doesn't run that risk.

    In the Consumer Reports universe, small Asian cars score highly because of their better quality and gas mileage, while luxury and near-luxury sedans and SUVs rank much further down. More expensive autos are done in by deep depreciation, skimpy fuel economy, and -- shockingly -- poor predicted reliability. The bottom line is that a status brand and a high price aren't good indicators of value. Consumer Reports' ratings make a convincing case for caveat emptor.

捷豹XJL

    2009年上市的最新款捷豹（Jaguar）XJL纤长的轮廓尽显雍容华贵，但质量却不甚可靠，容易让人们想起早年关于捷豹质量问题的故事。捷豹XJL在《消费者报告》的试驾中得分很高，但读者们反映它的可靠性远远低于平均水平。与此同时，这辆售价81,575美元的豪车仅仅每英里的使用费用就达到了1.58美元，几乎比本田飞度（Honda Fit）高出四倍。捷豹XJL的总体价值分数大概只有平均分值的三分之一，在所有上榜汽车中垫底。

Jaguar XJL

    Despite its svelte lines, the newest Jaguar, introduced in 2009, threatens to revive all those old tales about dodgy Jaguar quality. The XJL scored well on CR's test drives, but readers report that its reliability is much worse than average. Meanwhile, the $81,575 Jag costs $1.58 per mile to operate, nearly four times higher than a Honda Fit. The Jag's overall value score was about one-third of average vehicles -- worst among all the cars ranked.