Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Consumer Reports announces most, least reliable cars — with plenty of surprises

Consumer Reports announces most, least reliable cars — with plenty of surprises | ExtremeTech: "Broad trends: Asian cars rock. Buick, too
Here are some key trends that we see.
First, the Asian brands rule the rankings.
The 10 brands rank 1-2-5-6-7-8-10-11-12-13, all in the top half. The average ranking is 7.5 (out of 29).
Kia and Hyundai are 5 and 7 (and no model was ranked below average), meaning the Korean brands are as good as the Japanese brands.
Thus you can buy most any Asian car coming off lease and expect decent reliability.
Among US automakers (meaning US-headquartered), Buick was the outlier with its third place finish, same as it earned on the J.D. Power Vehicle Dependability Index three-year-reliability survey.
After that, the best for GM was Chevrolet in 15th among 29 brands...
Europe’s premium automakers have often fared poorly in long-term reliability rankings.
They argued that when you a build a complex car, there may be more things that need attention.
Still, Lexus at No. 1 overall has a lot of complexity, as does Audi (No. 4) and BMW (No. 9). Note also that the two top-scoring models are Toyota and Lexus hybrids, which have additional complexity as well..."
Here are the least reliable cars. 
All are American cars except the dead-last Fiat 500L.

  • Cadillac Escalade (most unreliable of the bottom 10). Buy a Chevrolet Suburban or GMC Yukon XL instead, CR says, neither of which is saddled with the Cadillac CUE infotainment system. (Except look who’s No. 4 on the bottom 10 list below.)
  • Ford Focus.
  • Jeep Renegade
  • Chevrolet Suburban / GMC Yukon XL
  • Chrysler 200
  • Tesla Model X
  • Ram 2500 pickup
  • Chevrolet Tahoe / GMC Yukon
  • Ford Fiesta
  • Fiat 500L

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