I haven't bought a new vehicle of any type since 2002. I wasn't on line back then and information on vehicles required much more effort to come by compared to now where you have nearly limitless amounts of information a few key strokes and mere seconds away. So much so it becomes quite difficult separating bias from fact. IMHO most automotive publications are at best unreliable at worse biased influence paid for by major auto makers and as such are untrustworthy.

Bear in mind I am talking strictly 2019 model year trucks.

Add on top of this the fact that the debate among truck owners of who makes the best pickup is not unlike the ongoing debate between the Israelis and the Palestinians about territory. So asking people to give their opinions on a purchase that likely cost them closer to $40k than $30k and often much more than $40k and remain unbiased flies in the face of reality and contrary to human nature.

After researching trucks from Ford, GM/GMC and Toyota at an near endless number of automotive websites over the last year, I stumbled on to a website called www.carcomplaints.com that lists all TSBS, recalls, officially filed complaints, lemon laws and crash test results. I feel that the number of factory recalls and TSBS are excellent indicators of a vehicles overall quality and long term reliability. Although some data may exist that is as good or better, I am not aware of it and if someone knows of a type ot types of data more reliable than FRC's and TSBS please by all means enlighten me.

I research my trucks so diligently because besides the considerable cost, I keep my trucks 15 or more years and I maintain them very well. Based on the fact I keep a truck 15 or more years, (I've kept my present truck 18 years, the one before that 23) if for example F-150, GM/GMC and Tundra are about equal in the number of factory recalls, TSBS become more important a deciding factor than factory recalls in MY opinion. Therefore I feel it very unwise to buy a 2019 GMC/GM truck that has 500 TSB's when a 2019 F-150 has only 127.

Unless someone knows of data that can be found that is a better more accurate predictor of vehicle reliability I have been using the number of Technical Service Bulletins and Factory recalls as the best indication of vehicle reliability as well as predicting weather or not the vehicle will experience a larger than acceptable number of issues that result in costly repairs.
As an example the 2019 GMC Sierra GM/Silveradow 1500 has 500 (yes that's 500 not 50) TSBS VS the F-150 which has only 127. I feel the Sierra/Silverado 1500 is FAR more likely to cost a considerable more money in repairs over the length or ownership, especially if you factor in I keep my trucks for 15 or more years.

And factory recalls (as long as you are aware of them) will always have to be fixed by the manufacturer for free regardless if the truck is still under warranty or not, unlike TSBS which once your warranty expires repairs come out of your pocket.

TSB's and factory recalls combined with price is what has driven me to choose the 2019 F-150.Using factory recalls and TSBS Compared to GM/GMC, F-150 is clearly a better made more reliable truck and equal more or less to Tundra and when you combine price and gas mileage, F-150 has the clear advantage over Tundra.

So my question is to those who are far more knowledgeable than I, what data out there other than TSBS and Factory recalls is the type of unbiased BS free data that can be relied upon as accurate indicators of a vehicles over all quality and long term reliability or is there some other data I failed to find after searching the web countless hundreds of hours over the last 12-14 months.

 

All machines will have issues. The only key I can think of that merits quality and longevity is who's the best selling truck for over 40 years? Can you guess who that might be?

There's a reason Ford claims that title, "customer satisfaction" repeat buyers make it so.
.

 

I paid for a subscription to consumer reports and found that website to no be biased. Upon reading for 2017 model years Toyota trucks were the top pickup for reliability, and Ford was a close second due to glitches with the sync system. Third place was Chev GMC and last place was Ram. Couldn’t remember where nissan was on the list. Somewhere between GMC Chev and Ram.

having said that. I couldn't justify paying more for the Toyota and loosing technology, fuel milage and payload and towing.

on another note I’ve had no issues with sync 3 in the 2.5 years of ownership.

My truck has had 2 recalls though.

 

I also are a subscriber to CS, for over 15 years now and took their data into strong consideration. CS rated the F-150 above all other trucks in it's class (Toyota always a close second and actually rated Tundra as slightly more reliable) more years than not. I could be wrong but IIRC, CS only gave buy recommendations to 2019 F-150 and Tundra.

My point is I own my trucks for at LEAST 15 years. The odds are it is almost inevitable that a truck with 500 TSBS's will have out of warranty issues that cost money to repair, will have a considerable larger number of repairs you have to pay for than a truck that has 127 or over 300% fewer TSBS's.

I don't now how else to look at such fact based unbiased 100% accurate data and NOT come to that conclusion.

 

Think you are on track with your research. I look at all the same numbers every time I want to replace a truck. We have bought Ford F-150's for 35 years and live in a rough, high altitude, unpaved area that often pushes the envelope of ability of the trucks in winter. Never had an equipment failure directly associated with hard use.

I also maintain these trucks very well and look at replacing them around 15 years old. And, that is usually due to wanting a new truck and approaching high mileage on the old one. Have been happy with the Ford product for a long time.

 

Thanks for sharing your experience. I use my trucks A LOT but I don't haul or tow with them just do a lot of driving for hunting, shooting and fishing. I bring a lot of gear with when I hunt.

 

There's always some unreliability when repair data is solicited from vehicle owners. It's not always a good sample, and owners have their own biases. A Toyota owner, for example, may brush off a quality issue as a fluke because Toyotas are supposed to be reliable.

Vehicles today are a lot more reliable overall than in years past. What I try to watch out for are trouble spots, e.g., a particular engine that's known for problems. Years ago there was a Saturn model that could be had with two different transmissions. One was a disaster, failures galore. The other was fine. But the car got overall bad reliability ratings.

It'd be great if we had access to manufacturer's repair databases. They have data on every single warranty claim. But they won't be sharing it of course.

 

For any given vehicle I'd be curious to know what proportion of the TSB's are related to issues with optional features. Meaning that if one was to buy a base vehicle and forgo same that they would potentially have a more trouble free (reliable?) vehicle.

This speaks to the old saw "more options = more things to break/go wrong".....

 

Keep in mind, 2019 is a first model year for the Silverado so more TSB's would be expected. Some OEM's are better at issuing TSB's than others as well.

 

My son was casually researching 1/2 tons when he went out of state for a bird hunt. He mentioned this search to one of the locals and was advised to buy what most of the farmers/ranchers bought. Ford was a clear leader at the time.

Brad