![Illinois Auto Dealers Sue State Over Rivian’s Direct-Sales Model [UPDATED]](https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/rivian-suv-610x407.jpg)
Consumer Reports has released its reliability rankings for automotive brands. The results, based on responses from half million of its readers, are about what you’d expect, with a few exceptions. Normally, reliability rankings don’t change all that much per annum. However, this year’s tally saw some surprising slippage from domestic brands that had performed rather well over the past few years.
The biggest loser was Buick, which fell 11 spots in 2018. CR attributed it to lackluster performance from the redesigned Enclave. Owners cited repeated issues with its new nine-speed transmission and claimed the rest of the brand’s fleet was middling at best. Buick now occupies 19th place, or slightly below average. On the flip side of things, Mazda shot up 9 spots to occupy a comfy position in 3rd place overall. While minor HVAC issues continue to plight the CX-3, the outlet suggested that the rest of its lineup has gotten its act together.
We probably don’t even need to tell you who performed best overall. As you might have guessed, Lexus and Toyota walked away with top honors for the sixth year in a row. Regardless of whether or not you enjoy their products, Toyota continues building some of the most trouble-free automobiles in existence. Consumer Reports only noted the Tacoma and Camry as potential outliers, saying both had minor transmission issues but weren’t duds in the grand scheme of things.
These two conjoined brands were followed by Mazda, Subaru, Kia, and Infiniti — all of which were honored with “above-average” reliability based on survey results.
Audi, BMW, Mini, and Hyundai followed relatively closely behind. It’s worth noting that BMW’s SUVs fared significantly worse than its sedans, frequently garnering below average scores due to specific trouble spots. On the X1, those included suspension problems, premature brake wear, and steering wheel vibrations. The X3 also suffered from coolant leaks and easily broken seat controls.
Porsche, Genesis, Acura, Nissan, and Honda were mid-pack brands in terms of reliability. Interestingly, Acura climbed up 6 spots to assume 13th place while the historically stalwart Honda fell 6 places to sit at 15th overall. CR blamed some of its new and redesigned models — especially the Clarity and fifth-generation Odyssey. While quite possibly one of the best-driving minivans in history, the Odyssey is plagued with a crummy infotainment system and a few electronic gremlins. Some of Honda’s other models dropped to average, notably the Accord and CR-V.
Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Ford, Buick, and Lincoln rounded out the slightly-below average group. While VW’s offerings all tended to fare about the same, with the Atlas doing the worst and the GTI coming in just below average, Ford and Lincoln had a couple of all-stars with their full-sized sedans.
Dodge, Jeep, Chevrolet, Chrysler, and GMC were next down the line. FCA’s improvements were largely dependent upon the venerable Challenger, which garnered better-than-average reliability, but still hampered by a few SUVs with “multiple problem areas.” Meanwhile, General Motors seems to be ailing rather badly; all of its brands fell down the list for 2018 save for GMC. While the truck brand had some real duds, the Terrain, Yukon, and Yukon XL all returned average or better reliability.
And now we get to the real stinkers. Ram, Tesla, Cadillac, and Volvo did the worst out of every automaker with enough volume to make the survey. Tesla fell 6 spots to 27th thanks to slippage from the Model S and serious issues from the Model X’s doors. Fortunately for the California automaker, the Model 3 possessed average reliability. At Cadillac, only the XTS sedan came in with better-than-average reliability.
Volvo, which came in dead last, was far behind the rest of the pack. Its fleet suffered from habitual issues with their infotainment system (including freezes), issues with climate control, and interior rattling. The S90 was also hit with complaints about engine knock. Yikes.
One of the biggest takeaways from the survey was how much better cars tended to do than SUVs. Ford’s Taurus and Lincoln’s Continental absolutely trounced the majority of the utility vehicles offered by their respective brands. This phenomena even extended to premium nameplates like Porsche. The high-performance 911, which was deemed to possess above average reliability, did significantly better than the Cayenne. For many automakers, this came down to the cars being around longer than the fresh-faced SUVs, but it wasn’t always the case.
Our advice is still to buy whatever pleases you most, but to always take into account how long a specific model has been in production. Do some digging into its reliability. Just about every brand has outliers on both ends of the spectrum. If you want to start investigating now and see a complete rundown of how each band performed this year, head over to Consumer Reports.
[Image: Lexus]
Not too many surprises there- other than me thinking the only way to “own” a higher end Euro-Brand is to lease it and make sure it gets turned in before the warranty expires. There’s a damned good reason why you see so many Mercedes/BMW/Audi’s on the Buy Here Pay Here used car lots.
We’re on our 2nd Toyota- boring, built like a Rolex, solid as a rock (Highlander). At my stage in life, “boring” for the wife’s car translates into “Happy wife, Happy life.”
You are definitely regarding the German brands. Never ever own one of these out of warranty. I suppose the same can be said for the C hinese brands like Volvo.
Interesting. My 17 GTI hasn’t had any issues in 12k miles so far (knock on wood) and our 14 & 18 Jeep Cherokee have been fine, too.
I am laughing at the fact that Acura moved up while Buick went down. That should make for interesting comments on TTAC.
Overall, it seems most cars are relatively decent now, mainly having (early) issues regarding infotainment, NVH, etc. Sad to hear about Volvo, but I don’t think any of us are surprised (too much tech, too fast).
I know we are talking about new cars here but our ’08 Volvo was worse then our ’00 VW… and that is saying something. Guess Volvo’s glory days are long gone.
Everyone laughs at Dodge but my Dakota has been the most reliable vehicle I’ve owned after a several Hondas. Next up would be my Nissan. I currently own a GM product so I live in fear. However it is a Corvette which has some unique engineering that goes outside the normal Chevy lines. It does share the infotainment system with other bow tie products and that seems to be a weak point with frozen screens and other software gremlins. For example the reverse cam sometimes doesn’t turn on.
Volvo’s glory days ended with the 2/7/940s
“Everyone laughs at Dodge but my Dakota has been the most reliable vehicle I’ve owned…”
One thing about FCA is, for the most part, they make desirable vehicles. Were looking for a SUV/CUV to replace a MDX that served us well but it’s time for it to go.
Test drove a SRT Grand Cherokee and absolutely loved it. If you gotta drive a SUV, you could do a lot worse than a Jeep. It probably won’t have the rock solid reliability of a Four Runner or a GX, but it will put a smile on your face whenever you drive it.
And Volvo has elegant designs but the mechanical and electrical sides are letting them down. Personally, I don’t like the turbo-supercharged four. They need to add some version of a six, preferably straight, to their line up.
But the vehicles are gorgeous. I often think of a V90 but I purchase vehicles to keep. Don’t want to go down that road with Volvo.
Discrepancies abound, per usual. Why, for example, would Dodge Charger rate above average and Chrysler 300 average? They’re the same car. Why would Dodge Challenger be knocked for “transmission problems” while its platform mates with the same drivetrains were not?
Maybe driving patterns between the 300 and the Charger?
Made in Same factory but not by the same people.Mercury used to always score higher than its Ford counterparts.
Same factory, same line, same people. Mercury’s scoring higher than Ford was equally ridiculous.
So I don’t know if you miss read what I wrote or just don’t care what I wrote either way is fine with me however be that as it may I have had relatives that worked in the plant that build Taurus and Sable twins. The people that build the Sable would not the same people that built the Taurus. So you can just stop now.
Was actually referring to Brampton Assembly where 300, Charger, and Challenger are produced.
I don’t know anything about Ford’s Chicago and former Atlanta Assembly facilities. But I highly doubt your relatives’ claim that the Taurus and Sable were assembled by different people.
> Discrepancies abound, per usual.
Because it’s not actually a measure of the most reliable cars per say, it’s a measure of what the owners report as being reliable. (Philosophy for stats nerds)
I understand the nuance, but that’s not how the media portrays these results.
Could be as simple as one engine selling better in the Charger and one selling better in the 300.
“Why, for example, would Dodge Charger rate above average and Chrysler 300 average?”
The primary flaw of all of these surveys is that the minimum acceptable sample sizes are too small. The result is a high margin of error.
They should be including several hundred vehicles per vehicle per model year, but both CR and JD Power will post results with just 100 respondents. They aren’t being sloppy, it’s just hard to do better than that in the real world.
If the surveys had sample sizes that were sufficient, then there wouldn’t be many vehicles in the survey. So I can’t really blame them for working with what they have.
Exactly this, that’s why I’ve never held Consumer Reports reliability ratings in very high regard. There are just too many variables unaccounted for. I especially don’t understand when a particular model goes up or down several positions from one year to another when there’s been no changes to the model. How can the same car be good one year and fall out of bed the next?
There is a video for that on YouTube with an explanation
I do, but only because they’re the only large sample game in town.
But when folks ask me if CR is a Bible, I tell them your mileage may vary.
The vast majority of Toyotas/Lexi I’ve come in personal contact with (owned, family members, friends, etc), a sample size of 36, have all gotten stellar service with the exception of one lemon (2008 Camry). Those things happen.
Again, YMMV….
Perhaps the Charger, since many of them are sold to fleets as police cars, has sturdier interior components and different transmission tuning than the 300. The Challenger is also probably the only one of the three available with a manual transmission; that may account for the difference in their transmissions’ reliability ratings.
300 generally has more stuff to break.
Reminds me of the chevy Nova and its toyota twin. I don’t remember which Toyota it was, but the toyota was tops for reliability – the virtually identical (Nummi produced?) Nova was below average.
I think expectations and maintenance play a role. People who buy Chargers are probably more into the car than people who buy 300s. Maintenance may be better and people may be more inclined to modify and beat on Chargers and are pleasantly surprised when few things break as opposed to 300 owners who want nothing to break and are trying it as a bigger American alternative to the Camry or Accord they have been driving.
The interiors of the new Volvo’s are beautiful, but I suspected there’d be issues when common controls (climate control, heated seats, radio, etc.) can only be accessed through the massive infotainment screen. It’s over 100 degree outside, but you can’t cool the car down because the screen froze. Damn shame. I wonder if the knocking issues are predominantly with the Super and Turbo charged models.
All Volvo engines are turbo- (T5) or twin-charged (T6, T8) variants of the same 2.0L design these days.
A frozen screen in your example I would class as a ‘system failure.’ The Volvo 850 I owned had system failures for everything but the chassis. Not one system HVAC, PCV, Instrument cluster etc., did not have multiple failures. No idea where Volvo got a reputation for reliability.
My understanding is that the brick Volvos were reliable when purchased with the correct four cylinder engine and transmission. Everything after that has not been particulary reliable.
They were always known as being very safe cars, although they were known to be quite dangerous to motorcyclists at least well into the ’90s.
2018 reliability? Seems too early to tell if a car is reliable.
As an Alfa owner, I can assure you that it’s not too early to tell if a car is _un_reliable.
Do tell…
You knew that going in, didn’t you? :)
I did indeed, and I have zero regrets, though I think my wife is p—ed that I didn’t get another Acura.
@hubcap: I’ve told this tale before, but in brief, a few weeks after I bought the car, a problem with the original battery tripped a transmission failure alarm and basically killed the car over a weekend. After they IDed the problem and replaced the battery the car ran fine, and I haven’t had any problems in the 7k miles since, but it was a very Italian welcome to a new car.
Oh, and I have two open recalls so far.
CR doesn’t account for ownership period. That is one reason the results jump around from year to year. Plus their survey is in March or so when vehicle models have been on the market not much earlier than September.
CR doesnt care if you owned a Model 3 for one day or less than the year they have been out.
“At Cadillac, only the XTS sedan came in with better-than-average reliability.”
Sh*t. Can’t allow that. Better cancel it.
____________________________________________________
Also, I’m pretty sure this is the worst Buick has done in the CR reliability survey *ever*.
It should have better than average reliability – it is the world’s nicest FWD Impala after-all.
CR also did a writeup on the reliability of turbo engines.
consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-satisfaction/troubles-with-turbo-engine-reliability/
Enjoy that 2.7L “Tripower” early adopters.
I’d be happy with “as reliable as the average non-turbo engine” given how excellent engines are now compared to the past.
GM. What a joke!
According to a friend of mine who is a Volvo consultant, at the close of the month, Volvo will cease offering its 7-year, 100K-mile CPO program, in favor of one with 1 extra year from the original in-service date and unlimited miles.
Maybe they know their turbocharged / supercharged / electrified powertrains aren’t going to hold out in the long run…?
Yeah, the writing is on the wall. They’re seeing the data from current warranty/dealer repairs and don’t want to hold that bag for any longer than they need to.
But the cars are elegant. Inside and out. A shame really.
As of today, Volvo offers warranty periods that exceed the 7/100k warranty. I recall it being called the VIP program warranty and only Volvo dealers sell it.
The new XC90 launched in 2016, so Volvo has nearly 3 years of reliability data to work from. They likely know they’ll lose their shirts if they keep the 7/100 warranty.
At 50,000 miles my 2014 Acura TSX had the tire pressure sensors go bad for a couple of days. Bluetooth was disconnecting a lot for a couple of weeks, but that hasn’t happened for months now. Can’t imagine any GM car doing better and I base that on my two Chevy trucks I had before.
Fred
After 2 1/2 years and 51,000 miles My 2016 Regal AWD GS has been perfect.
At 20,000 miles(8 miles to work) and 2.5 years the 2016 Buick Envision 2.0T has handles everything I’ve thrown at it. The almost 400 lb-dt of torque on a E50 ethanol ecu tuned mix is sipped it like fine wine.
Buddy of mine
a) got a 2.0T Buick Envasion (Invasion Murdered Out Edition in Bruce Lee Triple Black Belt Black)
b) did a full CDM debadge and rebadge on it
c) shipped it by Kosco shipping container to original place of assembly, Yantai, China, SAIC GM Dong Yue Foundry, Guangdong
d) had it Invasion OctoFecta Tuned there
e) and it’s now making 789 horsepower at the crank/880-pound feet of torque
f) and gets 68 mpg city/81 mpg highway at speeds of up to 160 mph
g) Bonus: He paid $11,117 out the door for it new with tax, title, everything.
Awesome vehicle, great dealership, fantastic price!
DeadWeight
Does this buddy only come around when your off your meds, and has anyone else ever seen this buddy?
His buddy’s name is Tyler Durden.
Tesla is garbage manufactured by stoned, underpaid, over-stressed employees driven by a Tony Stark-wannabe.
Guangzhou-Guadalajara Motors (GGM) and their brands, Bruick included, are rolling dumpster fires composed of absolute lowest bidder 2nd and 3rd world parts, and Cadillac gets the same defective and/or disposable Chinesium parts that the Chevrolets get (the XT4 is the latest of the massively overpriced, under-baked, pieces of Chinesium Sh!t, that should definitely represent the Cadillac “brand” with a Roger Smith “Cadillac of Equinoxes” Special Edition).
Volvo is now like H&M fast fashion, ruled by its Geely overlords; looks great when new – wait for the vehicle to literally disintegrate at a rapid pace around the driver and occupants with an average duty cycle of 17 months and/or 17 months, whichever comes first (one of the biggest and saddest developments in automotive history; the once proud, mighty, durable, and very ingenious Volvo being taken over and Chinese-ified).
Give RAM 12-18 months to get the bugs out of the 100% new, completely redesigned 2019 RAM pickups, made of mostly American-made parts, in the USA (RAM has 78% American-made parts content vs Chrevolet Mexirado’s and GMC’s Chinera’s barely 50%, many being assembled down Mexico way), and it’s going to put then hurt on the Guangzhou-Guadalajara Twins (it already is, in fact).
By the way, I can post the last predictions I made about the economy slowing, the Chinese domestic vehicle market chartering, and many, many other things, and one would find that I am so close in time to what I post and what happens in the real world in terms of accuracy, that I literally have Johnny Smith’s (Christopher Walken’s) predictive powers in The Dead Zone.
Now watch and wait as even more of my dire predictions about Filing Cabinet Ford under Jim Hackett’s (and Jim Fartley’s) leadership come more and more spot on with each passing day.
“Buick included, are rolling dumpster fires composed of absolute lowest bidder 2nd and 3rd world parts”
tinyurl.com/y7oea4p7
Liking automotive brands was a mistake.
>Give RAM 12-18 months to get the bugs out of the 100% new, completely redesigned 2019 RAM pickups
FCA products are manufactured using the following methodology:
“Dodge testing. RAM it into production.”
DW when is FCA going to move their HD trucks out of Satillo?
Tesla is garbage manufactured by stoned, underpaid, over-stressed employees (many working out of tents and cobbling together parts meant to be produced by automation by hand, driven by a Tony Stark-wannabe batsh!t crazy snake oil salesman, under LED-lit tents).
Guangzhou-Guadalajara Motors (GGM) and their brands, Bruick included, are rolling dumpster fires composed of absolute lowest bidder 2nd and 3rd world parts, and Cadillac gets the same defective and/or disposable Chinesium parts that the Chevrolets get (the XT4 is the latest of the massively overpriced, under-baked, pieces of Chinesium Sh!t, that should definitely represent the Cadillac “brand” with a Roger Smith “Cadillac of Equinoxes” Special Edition).
Volvo is now like H&M fast fashion, ruled by its Geely overlords; looks great when new – wait for the vehicle to literally disintegrate at a rapid pace around the driver and occupants with an average duty cycle of 17 months and/or 17 months, whichever comes first (one of the biggest and saddest developments in automotive history; the once proud, mighty, durable, and very ingenious Volvo being taken over and Chinese-ified).
Give RAM 12-18 months to get the bugs out of the 100% new, completely redesigned 2019 RAM pickups, made of mostly American-made parts, in the USA (RAM has 78% American-made parts content vs Chrevolet Mexirado’s and GMC’s Chinera’s barely 50%, many being assembled down Mexico way), and it’s going to put then hurt on the Guangzhou-Guadalajara Twins (it already is, in fact).
By the way, I can post the last predictions I made about the economy slowing, the Chinese domestic vehicle market cratering, and many, many other things, and one would find that I am so close in time to what I post and what happens in the real world in terms of accuracy, that I literally have Johnny Smith’s (Christopher Walken’s) predictive powers in The Dead Zone.
Now watch and wait as even more of my dire predictions about Filing Cabinet Ford under Jim Hackett’s (and Jim Fartley’s) leadership come more and more spot on with each passing day.
I choose cars that I like and I don’t give any consideration to reliability rankings. Why? Well, mostly because I love driving and driving dynamics and styling are by far the most important things for me. Besides, even cars at the bottom of the reliability rankings are largely very reliable. I’ve never owned a car that I’d consider unreliable by any measure. Even my last two Jeeps have been dead reliable. I’ve owned two Audis (and still own one of them) and neither have ever had a single thing go wrong with them. Probably the most unreliable vehicle I’ve owned over the years was my 2004 Toyota 4Runner, which I purchased brand new and kept for 10 years, but even that was very reliable overall. It did have a big problem with frozen pistons in its front brake calipers that meant I had to install new ones every two years. Annoying for sure, but not really unreliable. I also experienced a failed wiper switch in the 4Runner. But my biggest gripe was the extreme amount of rust on the frame, which is really the main reason I decided to trade it in on a Jeep.
I take Consumer Reports Reliability Ratings with a grain of salt.
So CR has approximately 7 million subscribers. Only about a half million of these subscribers bother to return their surveys. This is where their ratings come from. Now I personally don’t know anyone that subscribes to CR, so I wonder what they are driving. Based on CR tests from many years of reading their magazines, seems that most of them will be driving Toyota and Honda anyway. So I always wonder HOW objective their data really is ?
I would like to see a breakdown on what percent of responses were by Toyota Owners, GM Owners, Ford Owners, VW owners, etc.
If only 20 Ram Truck owners responded and 2 of them had a problem, it seems to me it could look like a bigger issue than it is.
Do Ram Truck buyers really subscribe to CR ?
Is my train of thought off here ?
How many of you subscribe to CR ?
> So I always wonder HOW objective their data really is
The statistical mechanics can be intuitive; you don’t always need a large sample size to get meaningful results. Typically, even if you sampling a niche population on the order of 1,000 or so, the a 10% margin of error at 95% percent confidence only requires 88 respondents. Mind you, a 10% CI is a swing of 20 points, but it’s enough to be indicative without necessarily being pin-point precise.
I thought the Model X’s doors were fixed – guess not.
No car maker really makes a terribly unreliable car these days, these kind or reports were more relevant 10 years ago than they are today. It’s far more useful to ask the public if they like their car and would buy another car from the same manufacturer in the future. At which point I suspect some brands like BMW and Volvo would jump up the list….
I’ve never bothered taking Consumer Reports seriously. Too many discrepancies.
The fact of the matter is that there are no poor quality or unreliable cars in today’s market. The vehicles at the bottom of the list are still reliable in the grand scheme of things. Consumers have come to expect a level of quality which all manufacturers fulfill – some better than others, but regardless there are no bad cars out there.
I am interested in what actually counts as “reliable.” Last I heard, Consumer Reports will accept criticism of say a difficult-to-use infotainment system as part of the car’s “reliability.” This make zero sense to me. For me a car is reliable as long as it starts, can drive, can brake, can turn, brings me from A to B and does this for years to come. I wouldn’t care if something non-essential broke which did not prevent the car from starting and running safely.
I care if the HVAC system breaks or the power windows fail or the paint flakes off in sheets, and I’m sure I can think of some additional “non-essential” things I care about.
On a $2000 hooptie “runs and drives” is enough, but on a $30K+ *new* car my expectations are going to be much higher.
>Consumer Reports will accept criticism of say a difficult-to-use infotainment system
Considering how muc is part of the infotainment unit now (HVAc, radio, navigation, backup camera) it can be either a driving distraction or an opportunity cost to bring it in to get it fixed. And no, it’s not “your grandpa doesn’t know how to use xomputers” it’s because these things often ship buggy and they can be slow to be patched.
Exactly this. If you can’t heat up your car on a subzero day because the only way to access the control is through the screen, but the screen “froze”, that’s ironic and aggravating. Infotainment is much more than just radio controls or “I can’t pair my phone” these days, so they are right to accept criticism against infotainment systems in rankings. I can only imagine the cost with the cars that have moved to complete digital gauges and what happens when those crap out.
One of the biggest takeaways from the survey was how much better cars tended to do than SUVs. Ford’s Taurus and Lincoln’s Continental absolutely trounced the majority of the utility vehicles offered by their respective brands. This phenomena even extended to premium nameplates like Porsche.
—-The above quote from within the story; tells the story.
CR is getting a different subset of peoples “opinions”
The guy buying a Taurus is likely a more mature “car-person” with possibly some brand loyalty. Also less likely to even bother to do a survey.
The person buying the SUV based off a Taurus is likely a younger, gotta have an “SUV” cause that’s whats cool these days person, who will likely want to do a survey so he can talk about all the minor-just not perfect for me- issues and things that are too hard to figure out so give em a low score.
CR auto surveys are really about the person, not the vehicle.
I can’t speak for their– TV or toaster surveys- cause I just don’t pay attention or care.
Are CR’s ratings the be-all, end-all, of reliability information? No. But they are the best source we have. Car manufacturers, of course, know the exact answers to all of this (at least for cars under warranty), but they aren’t telling.
Do these surveys account for the different levels of expectations for the various brands? I’m sure that the owner of a Mercedes-Benz S-class has significantly higher expectations than the owner of a Honda Fit.