Consumer Reports has just published its annual auto issue. As usual, it contains a lot of useful information for Route 66ers who are in the market for a new or used car. Consumer Reports has been doing this for decades and has a lot of credibility in its judgment about motor vehicles.
Some of highlights of the issue:
- Honda scored the best on the magazine’s report card for test scores and average predicted reliability. Not far behind was Subaru; 100 percent of its tested vehicles were recommended by Consumer Reports. Toyota was third.
- The worst in the report card, by a significant margin, was Chrysler.
- Of Detroit’s Big Three, Ford graded average or better, General Motors improved but remains inconsistent, and Chrysler was below-average across the board. In fact, Chrysler failed to have a single tested vehicle that was recommended.
- In terms of reliability by brand, Scion (a division of Toyota) scored first. Acura and Honda were second and third.
- The least-reliable brand was Land Rover. Near the bottom were Saturn and Chrysler.
- Toyota Prius was declared by the magazine having “the most bang for the buck.”
- The Lexus LS 460L scored a 99 of 100 in the magazine’s testing and reliability survey. The lowest was Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Sahara, scoring a 17.
- The best-performing battery brand is EverStart.
- Tire brands that keep popping up in CR’s recommendations are Michelin and Yokohama.
Much of CR’s content is behind a paid-subscriber firewall, but there’s also plenty of free data, too. You can surf parts of the auto issue here.
I guess I’ve just been lucky with my two Chryslers. Not counting my beloved ’89 Toyota Land Cruiser which I owned for 14 years without a defect, my two Chryslers have been the greatest, most reliable vehicles I”ve ever owned. In the 148K miles I drove the PT Cruiser, I had ZERO problems or repairs. I now have 95K miles on my 2006 Chrysler 300, and it has a perfect record, too. Just my luck? I hope I’m not jinxing myself by saying all of this. I had two Jeeps in the past, and both of them lived in the repair shop.
Our ’04 Chrysler Sebring is a great car.
My ’00 Silverado has almost 145,000 miles and I’ve never had to touch the engine. A great truck. I’m very satisfied with it. We had a ’00 Blazer with a 100,000 miles and still going strong when it was totaled in a wreck.
I’ve driven three Chryslers. Every one of them blew a transmission before 70,000 miles. I wouldn’t even CONSIDER a Chrysler with an automatic transmission. Maybe a stick … if there were no other cars available … but I wouldn’t touch another automatic.
I’ve had great luck with all my domestic made vehicles, Chrysler and GM (sorry, haven’t tried a Ford yet). We had a ’95 Neon that had a few small problems, but nothing major. And we still enjoyed that little car, before it was destroyed by a reckless FEDEX driver. I LOVE my Suburban. My wife’s Olds has been a good car too. And my daily driver Buick wagon is pushing the 130k mark and still running strong.
I’ve never subscribed nor sat down and read an issue of this magazine. Reports and rankings that I’ve seen, like this one, have been the reason for my ignoring this publication….their “testing” has NEVER matched up with my real world experiences.