"i trust their [CR] car reviews,,,"
At the time of Lexus/Toyota unintentional acceleration deadly fiasco, Consumer Report still had some Toyota on the cover as "The Best", maybe "most reliable". In any case, they gave high marks, and certainly influenced a number of purchases, to the car that ended up being a disaster in full meaning of that word.
At some point, their review discouraged buyers from one car just to name it the best the following year. Without any model change. Same car. I bought it and all my friends said I was wrong because "didn’t you see what Consumer Report says". A few months later, I had "the best".
I am with millercarbon on this one. I would not check their reviews of a toaster or a screwdriver. For whatever reason, their reviews miss every point I could be interested in and are not trustworthy for my needs.
"Unbiased reviews" and "no advertisements" was also debatable. At that time, it had higher percentage of advertising pages than Stereophile, or whatever audio magazine I had. I counted them. True, Consumer Report advertisements were for their own money-making services.