quote from...Yahoo Newsyahoo news

Jap Cars Score Highest
by
DEE-ANN DURBIN, AP Auto Writer


For the first time in nine years, all of the top picks in Consumer Reports' annual vehicle guide are made by Japanese automakers. The Honda Civic is the magazine's top small sedan, while the Toyota Highlander Hybrid is the top mid-sized sport utility vehicle, according to results released Wednesday.

Vehicles from Nissan Motor Co. and Subaru, a division of Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd., round out the top picks in 10 categories.

Asian brands also fared best in the magazine's survey of vehicle reliability. Toyota Motor Corp.'s Lexus brand was first, while Honda was second and the Toyota brand was third. Ford Motor Co.'s Mercury brand was the only domestic nameplate to crack the top ten.

Consumer Reports' rankings are important to automakers, even though companies can't use the ratings in their advertising. Consumer Reports spokeswoman Lauren Hackett said the April auto issue is consistently the magazine's most popular, selling more than 300,000 copies at newsstands. That's twice as many copies as its second-most popular issue, the November electronics issue.

Consumer Reports named its top picks based on road and track tests, evaluations of comfort, convenience and fuel economy, crash protection ratings from the government and insurance industry and readers' reliability rankings. The magazine said it recently tested more than 200 vehicles to come up with its top picks.

Honda had the most winners, snagging top picks in five of the ten categories. Besides the redesigned Civic, the Honda Accord was the top family sedan between $20,000 and $30,000 and the Acura TL was the top upscale sedan between $30,000 and $40,000. The Honda Odyssey was the top minivan and the Honda Ridgeline, which is Honda's first entry in the pickup market, was the top pickup.

Toyota and Subaru each had two winners, including the Subaru Forester for small SUV and the Toyota Prius for "green car." Nissan had one, the M35 luxury sedan, which the magazine called "an excellent balance of performance, comfort and handling."

Reliability rankings are based on a survey of Consumer Reports subscribers who are asked if they have had serious problems with their vehicles in the past 12 months. The survey questions readers about 17 different trouble spots. For this year's survey, readers rated their experience with 810,000 vehicles from the 1998 through 2005 model years.

Consumer Reports said Japanese and Korean brands had 12 problems per 100 vehicles, while U.S. automakers had 18 problems and European makers had 21 problems. Asian and U.S. automakers have been improving their scores but appeared to stall in 2005, the magazine said. European automakers' ratings haven't changed substantially in the last four years, the magazine said.

After Lexus, Honda and Toyota, the brands rounding out the top ten for reliability were Mitsubishi, Subaru, Acura, Scion, Mercury, Mazda and Suzuki. The ten lowest-rated brands were Audi, Infiniti, Saturn, Lincoln, Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Land Rover, Hummer and Porsche.

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Ooooh K

 

I'm selling my Mercedes right away!!!!!

I owned Toyotas for 20 years. Although they proved reliable, they were also somewhat boring. I like consumer reports mag, but I think there is some expectation fulfillment in their auto surveys. I mean, they have been recommending Asian cars for years and readers of the magazine, I assume, buy the cars that CU recommends. I know I bought several in the 80's and 90's. Once purchased owners think they are supposed to like it because CU said it was the best car in that category. At this point, I think owners will minimize problems they have with their 'fine Asian car', because - they are, according to CU-fine Asian cars.
I came to this conclusion by checking recalls and TSB's for Civics and Corollas one year. That year, Civic and Corolla both had more problems than the lowly Ford Focus, yet according to CU, owners of those cars were happier with them than were owners of the Focus.
I will say that during my time with Toyota products, the customer service was excellent.

 

Yeah, I agree. You can represent this another way with a simple equation. Fewer moving parts equals fewer problems.

When I was working, my job required large supporting engineering groups contracted from different companies. I remember they all used to joke about how engineers that couldn't cut it in the real world of engineering could always go work for CU. Sort of the last resort if you couldn't get a real job.

What I've noticed over the years is that CU most often recommends the cheapest product, rather than the best product. Of course, they call it the "best buy" or the "smart buy" instead of the cheapest. They put too weight on the price.

 

I dont buy based on what a magazine says. I look over the data they collect and make my own personal decision. Humans write magazines all are bias in someway. Some more than others.

 

I stopped paying attention to that mag. The best way to find out is go test drive it yourself and make up your mind from there and just ask people who own those types of cars. That's give you a real world view.