First thing I did with my last new PC, Windows 8 on it, was boot it up and turn off automatic updates. I don't trust the updates for reliability or security until someone else has used them without a problem. I've not installed a single update since I bought this one over 2 years ago (or thereabouts). Works fine.
I haven’t had the auto update turned on in years. Like you, I wait for reports from others before I update and I have had just about every version of Windows since 3.0.