The judges, who included the full Cars.co.za editorial team and a host of celebrity judges, tested 39 vehicles across 13 different categories.
Their scores will now be tabulated by auditors PwC and combined in equal measure with the feedback of thousands of vehicle owners from the Cars.co.za Ownership Satisfaction Survey to decide each category winner. The customer feedback has been compiled in partnership with vehicle information specialists, Lightstone Auto.
The Cars.co.za Consumer Awards, powered by WesBank, made waves five years ago when they were launched as a comprehensive and statistically significant evaluation of the thousands of models available on the South African market.
Unlike other automotive competitions, the Cars.co.za Consumer Awards, powered by WesBank, considers all vehicles that are on sale on a given date (1 September 2019, in this case). From this pool, the judges pick semi-finalists and finalists using a very rigorous set of criteria, including the feedback from owners and market insight from Cars.co.za's deep knowledge of the automotive market.
The finalists were then pitted against each other over two days at Gerotek, with specific judges assigned to each category. Their inputs are weighted, based on the category, and combined with the customer data from the Ownership Satisfaction Survey to truly find the best vehicle in each category.
This process means that poor service support or sub-par vehicle durability will show up in the Ownership Satisfaction Survey and act as a counterbalance to excellent on-track performance at Gerotek. Similarly, a vehicle may prove to offer exceptional service and durability, but not represent automotive excellence, causing it to fall short at the Gerotek testing. Both emotion and reason have to be present for a vehicle to win its category.
“In the past five years, we conducted over 1,800 test drives and considered hundreds of thousands of customer inputs. This, along with the insights from our partner, WesBank, has allowed us to perfect our judging process and build an unmatched database of vehicle data,” says Hannes Oosthuizen, Cars.co.za Consumer Experience Manager.
As part of its process of refinement, Cars.co.za has introduced a new Crossover segment, removed the Executive Sedan category due to its low sales and a lack of new models and redefined the Hot Hatch category to a Fun Hatch category.
“Through our partnership with the Cars.co.za Consumer Awards, we have further broadened our understanding of the vehicle market and made it available to customers and manufacturers alike. This helps would-be buyers take the stress out of buying a vehicle, meaning they can make an informed choice, apply with our FastFinance app and drive away in their dream car in minutes,” says Lebogang Gaoaketse, Communications, Social & PR Manager at WesBank.
Aside from celebrating the fifth year running of the Cars.co.za Consumer Awards – powered by WesBank, Cars.co.za also popped the champagne on its tenth anniversary and its status as South Africa’s largest vehicle portal.
