Consumer Reports Annual Auto Report: Winners And Losers

Consumer Reports has released its annual auto issue and scorecard, and the results are hardly shocking. CR loves them some Toyota, Honda and Subaru, singling out the big H as building the most reliable lineup of vehicles (Element excepted). Toyota came in second, with the Prius winning top spot in CR’s new “value” ranking. Only Toyota’s Yaris and FJ Cruiser were unable to earn a “recommend” grade from the report. Mercedes has improved its reliability, reckons CR, but European brands are still lagging. On the American front, Ford is singled out as the high point among the American automakers, as “some Ford models now rival their competitors” from Japan. Too bad they’re the F150 and Flex, which compete for a shrinking market segments. Unfortunately, that’s as good as the news gets for Detroit.

Detroit only builds 19 percent of CR’s “recommended” vehicles, with efficiency and reliability lagging behind the Japanese competition. And as CR bluntly puts it, “the domestics don’t have any competitive small SUVs or small cars.” Buick Enclave, Cadillac CTS, Chevrolet Corvette, Chevrolet Malibu, Chevrolet Traverse, GMC Acadia, Pontiac G8, and Saturn Outlook fared the best of GM’s models. Chevy’s Avalanche was inexplicably named a pickup “top pick.”

And Chrysler? The less said the better. After tying with Suzuki for last place last year, Chrysler has elbowed the competition out, claiming the bottom spot for itself. Not a single Chrysler, Dodge, or Jeep product was recommended by CR. Chrysler’s vehicles “have noisy, inefficient, unrefined powertrains, subpar interiors, and poor visibility,” reckons CR. All of which has the Freep’s Mark Phelan wondering where it all went wrong. “The dismal showing raises serious questions about Cerberus’ management of the automaker it acquired in 2007 and the credibility of the company’s proposals as it seeks government loans to stay in business,” says the notorious Detroit booster. “Thank you sir, may I have another?”