Back a score or so years ago, when I was a subscriber to Consumer Reports, I recieved their annual survey. I paid particular attention to the questions in the automotive section. IIRC, the question on reliability was phrased as, " Did the vehicle have any failures which you consider to be major?" This always struck me as odd; as posted above, some people consider the failure to start at zero degrees a major failure, others would consider the failure of the power window as a major failure, while someone else might consider a broken transmission as normal wear and tear. Leaving the definition of "major" to various people seems to invite problems. Perhaps in a given sample such difference are statistically unimportant.
All this is to underscore the concept that statistics are often the tools of liars-this is even more applicable in the realm of things political than in things automotive.