Lexus, Toyota’s luxury brand known for excellent reliability, slipped to fifth place from last year’s first in new car predicted reliability, based on Consumer Reports’ annual survey.
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Other drops seen by previously high-scoring brands show that even the best cars can stumble, the consumers organisation said in a statement.
For the third consecutive year, Consumer Reports (CR) ranked automakers based on the average predicted reliability scores for their model line. Most models with the best predicted reliability were again from Asia, though Lincoln and GMC improved considerably, along with a few other domestic brands that improved over last year.
For the second year in a row, Ford brand Mercury was the only domestic to land in the top 10. Most domestic brands fell in rank, if only slightly. European brands were mixed, Audi had the biggest gain, but most are still predicted to have worse-than-average reliability.
According to CR, Lexus’ drop was due to its GS models receiving only an average rating, though parent Toyota was predicted to have the most reliable cars, moving up to first from third place last year. Honda remained unchanged in second place while Scion, Toyota’s ‘youth brand’, moved up to third place, from seventh. The top five most reliable brands of vehicles were all made by Toyota or Honda, according to the survey.
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By GlobalData“Even manufacturers that have had historically reliable cars have had some glitches with new models,” said David Champion, senior director of Consumer Reports’ auto test centre.
The findings were based on Consumer Reports’ annual reliability survey, conducted in spring 2006 amongst subscribers to the organisation’s members and visitors to its web site. Subscribers were asked to report any serious problems (due to cost, failure, safety, or downtime) experienced with their cars, vans, SUVs, or trucks during the previous 12 months.
Responses concerning about 1.3m vehicles were received, nearly double the number collected in 2003.
CR said the responses allowed it to present detailed reliability ratings, to predict reliability for 2007 models, and to determine which vehicles to recommend.
The predicted reliability score was based on the three most recent model years’ data for models whose design had not changed for 2007.
Moving up 20 slots to eighth place, Infiniti made the biggest improvement of any brand, mainly due to the still-troublesome QX56 SUV cutting its high problem rate by half; however, it was still below average.
Hyundai was also in the top 10. Acura moved up two places to fourth, while Subaru changed one place, moving to sixth, from fifth last year. Mitsubishi fell to ninth position, from fourth.
Suzuki dropped to 26th place, from 10th, the biggest slide of any Asian brand, but Consumer Reports said that could be linked to a 2006 redesign of the Grand Vitara, the only Suzuki model with sufficient data to generate a ranking.
Some domestic brands are closing the gap on Asian rivals, the report said. Lincoln showed the biggest improvement, moving into 13th position from 30th, mostly due to outstanding first-year reliability of the Zephyr (since renamed MKZ) sedan. GMC followed closely, moving up 11 places to 14th due to the high reliability of its redesigned Yukon full-size SUV.
Ford, in 16th position, remained unchanged, while Buick and Chevrolet improved slightly.
Jeep dropped the most of any domestic brand to 32nd place, from 19th. Its Grand Cherokee was far below average, CR said.
Among the European brands, Audi had seven of eight models in the average or better rating, resulting in a 15-place improvement. Mercedes-Benz fell four places to replace Porsche in last place.
Mercedes’ new or redesigned-for-2006 models were all far below average, Consumer Reports said, but no brand fell further than Mini, now in 28th place. Both S and non-S convertible versions of the Mini Cooper dropped to below average in the survey.
