Consumer Reports Says If You Like To Roll The Dice On Reliability, Then Buy American

I've owned numerous car brands and models from around the world and had trouble free examples of most and a few lemons from each. American examples overall were no better or worse than other brands. Have brought and won four lemon law suits over decades of driving...one Chevy truck, one Mustang (GT500), one BMW (M3) and one Subaru (STi). From my own experience Japanese brands (Honda, Subaru, Mazda & Lexus) had best reliability, fewer issues or defects if any. An industry executive once told me that the day of the week a car is produced has more to do with reliability than people know. Might be something to it.

Including Tesla right?

Also note that reliability varies, even in a brand! For example, if you bought a 1997 (or slightly earlier) BMW, then you likely remember very respectable reliability. No initial defects. Few breakdowns. Five years later, that story changed because of fluctuations in the Deutsche Mark forced BMW to cut corners to remain profitable.

You can get a Lemon from any manufacturer - there have been well documented Rolls Royce Lemons. Mass production is based on a degree of tolerance hoping that some go one way and others go the other way so they balance each other out - but all you need is an engine where the entire assembly is close to minimum tolerance and you get a tight engine that is likely to fail - and the other way produces an engine that likely burns a lot of oil.

I still would like to know WHERE the magazine gets it actual reports from - and HOW they get them. If they get them from ACTUAL warranty data from manufacturers - that would be one thing - but if you depending on the memory of an owner who spent a lot of money for a car - it might be something less than reality. I can still word a question on a poll to produce a desired result - and so can they.

For the average Mid-size sedan - I would be surprised if there was a real significant difference between the top makes - domestic and foreign - based on price range. Even Hyundai is likely to be similar to a Honda Accord. The question is -are the differences significant - AND - what are the actual difference. Are they mechanical - or are they electrical - or are they computer based (Software). At one time - mechanical problems were the largest - but electrical now leads the way.

Completely agree... CR appeals to a certain crowd, the granola crunching LL Beaner, Subaru driver. They have interesting perspectives on other products, but cars are not their sweet spot IMO. They put Cadillac near the bottom essentially for their CUE interface. I know you use it as have I and I thought it was clever and unique, I liked it... not sure this rag changes many enthusiast minds…

Make it a Type R. One of my sons has one..fun at any speed, alive in your hands, great shifter and fantastic seats. Of course the styling is an acquired taste but no matter when behind the wheel.

Porsche used to be consistent #1 or 2, what happened??

CR is notorious for messing with the data to create the headline for the article....

I love BMW and Range Rover but got sick of my vehicle spending 1/2 it time at the dealerships. But give the American and Japanese car styles, I am force to go back to them again. This time for the new BMW X5! Like it a lot but the reliability still is an issue for me. The sale guy says they have improved on that with the new model.