General Motors, Toyota Take Top Honors with Vincentric's Best Value in America Awards

Vincentric's Best Value in America awards were announced, along with Vincentric's Best Hybrid Value in America awards. Chevrolet's new Malibu was a winner, while the Honda Civic Hybrid won Vincentric's Best Hybrid Value in America Award. Vincentric measures value based upon the cost to own and operate a vehicle, and compares vehicles in similar segments to help buyers make an informed purchase decision. Vincentric data is published on a variety of consumer websites including Cars.com, Yahoo! Autos, and AutoTrader.com.

Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (PRWEB) February 7, 2008 -- General Motors was the big winner with today's announcement of Vincentric's Best Value in America™ awards, an honor that measures value using the overall cost to own and operate a vehicle. At the corporate level, GM rode the strength of its full-size pickups to bring home 10 awards, while Toyota brands also had a strong showing with 8 winning vehicles, including the Scion xB. Honda and Acura continued the consistent delivery of consumer value by winning 6 awards, while the free maintenance provided by BMW helped deliver 5 Best Value in America awards in various premium segments.

New for 2008 was Vincentric's Best Hybrid Value in America™ awards, with the Honda Civic Hybrid and the Ford Escape Hybrid each winning in their respective segments. Another winner of note was the newly re-designed Chevrolet Malibu, which used a combination of aggressive pricing and low depreciation to make its mark in its mid-size segment.

Vincentric measures cost-of-ownership using eight different cost factors: depreciation, fuel, insurance, opportunity cost, financing, maintenance, taxes and state fees, and repairs. Using a statistical model, the company identified the Best Value in America™ by measuring which vehicles have a lower than expected ownership cost given their market segment and price. Each vehicle was evaluated in all 50 states plus DC using a range of annual mileage intervals (10,000, 15,000 and 20,000 per year). In addition, Vincentric reviewed different insurance profiles (new drivers, less experienced drivers and experienced drivers) and their impact on value for each vehicle.

"We saw a large number of different makes winning Vincentric's Best Value in America award," stated David Wurster, President of Vincentric. "This shows the incredibly strong competition in today's market. The strong results from newly released vehicles make it clear that a focus on newly designed vehicles will be a requirement for manufacturers to provide a strong value proposition to consumers," he added.

The categories and the winners of Vincentric's Best Value in America™ for the 2008 model year and a synopsis showing detailed ownership costs for each winner is available at www.vincentric.com.

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