Consumer Reports Annual Auto Report: Winners And Losers

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

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?”

Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • Golden2husky Golden2husky on Feb 28, 2009

    Did not know that...thanks for the tip!

  • Tedward Tedward on Mar 01, 2009

    Ferrygeist I actually don't disagree with anything you've said...I certainly won't try to defend the Hemi as technologically relevant. However, despite the valve count, this is defintiely a refined, if not efficient engine. It just dosen't belong on a list of crap product. The S2000 is one of my top 3 favorite cars so I can't argue against it, but I'd like to point out that it's making about 150lb/ft at 6500rpm. The two engines are as "apples and oranges" as two normally aspirated engines could possibly be.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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