Who Makes the Most Reliable New Cars?
Mazda, Toyota, and Lexus continue to build vehicles that place the automakers at the top of our annual auto reliability brand rankings year in and year out. This year they're joined in the top 5 by Buick and Honda, brands that saw a significant improvement in their ranking.
Buick’s 14-position jump, the largest gain this year compared with last year, comes in large part because of not many problems in its small product lineup. Honda’s gain comes from steady improvements and some outstanding models in its lineup, which offset the ongoing reliability problems of its Odyssey minivan and Passport SUV.
Manufacturers ranking in the bottom-third saw big improvement this year.
Chevrolet and GMC moved up partly because of the above-average reliability of the Bolt EV and the 2500 heavy-duty pickup trucks.
BMW, Volvo, and Jeep also rose a significant number of spots in our rankings thanks to reliability improvements in some of their newer or redesigned models. The BMW 3 Series and X5, and Volvo S60/V60 and XC40 performed well. Jeep’s new Gladiator was very reliable in its first year, and the Wrangler’s reliability improved.
Many of the midpack manufacturers with average brand reliability didn’t experience big jumps. Subaru can’t get the reliability of its Ascent SUV on track, while the rest of its lineup is average or better. Audi was hurt by the redesigned Q3 SUV, along with the Q8 and E-Tron EV, all of which have below- or well-below-average reliability. The only reason the brand’s ranking didn’t change was that the A6 sedan improved to average this year joining the Q5, and the older, very reliable A4 and A5 helped raise the brand’s score.
A few manufacturers saw large drops. Kia introduced a new continuously variable transmission in two of its models, the Forte and Soul, that turned out to have significant problems.
Ford and Lincoln—midpack last year—dropped significantly because their new SUVs debuted with major problems. The Ford Explorer has one of the lowest reliability verdicts in this year's surveys, and the redesigned Escape isn't much better. Lincoln’s versions of these SUVs, the Aviator and Corsair, are plagued with similar problems.
Consumer Reports’ brand-level rankings are based on the average predicted reliability score for vehicles in the brand’s model lineup.
Our predicted reliability score is calculated on a 0-to-100-point scale, with the average rating falling between 41 and 60 points. For a brand to be ranked, we must have sufficient survey data for two or more models.
Here we present the rankings of brands as a whole based on their average reliability scores for their models that CR has data for. We list whether the brand’s rank went up or down since our last surveys, and how many models are included in that calculation.
Detailed reliability, including ratings for 17 potential trouble spots, is available to CR members on each car's model page.
For more details, go to CR's Guide to Car Reliability.
Car Brand Reliability Rankings
We either have insufficient data or the manufacturer has too few models for us to rank the Acura, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Fiat, Genesis, Jaguar, Land Rover, Maserati, and Mitsubishi brands.
Click on the brands in the infographic below to see how each model is rated.
How The Brands Stack Up
The brands are ranked on predicted reliability, based on CR member surveys.
Rank &
Change
Average
Scores
1 ↑1
83
MODEL SCORES
98
95
87
85
80
70
64
2 ↑1
74
MODEL SCORES
93
90
88
83
81
80
69
60
58
58
49
3 ↓2
71
MODEL SCORES
95
91
90
74
65
13
4 ↑14
70
MODEL SCORES
91
50
5 ↑7
63
MODEL SCORES
90
86
85
73
62
60
59
47
35
34
6
62
MODEL SCORES
87
78
65
54
47
43
7
58
MODEL SCORES
82
34
8 ↓1
57
MODEL SCORES
78
77
60
59
52
18
9 ↓5
55
MODEL SCORES
55
54
10 ↓2
54
MODEL SCORES
91
16
11 ↑2
54
MODEL SCORES
84
46
31
12 ↑5
52
MODEL SCORES
72
66
53
46
45
31
13 ↓2
51
MODEL SCORES
72
69
54
33
29
14
46
MODEL SCORES
86
86
58
50
30
12
8
15 ↓6
45
MODEL SCORES
83
81
54
46
18
18
13
16 ↑6
43
MODEL SCORES
73
57
46
26
13
17 ↑8
42
MODEL SCORES
85
73
57
41
39
32
26
13
12
18 ↑6
41
MODEL SCORES
71
66
28
26
17
19 ↑7
41
MODEL SCORES
99
48
31
27
21
19
20 ↑1
40
MODEL SCORES
65
50
43
1
21 ↑9
38
MODEL SCORES
57
20
22 ↓6
38
MODEL SCORES
69
56
53
48
46
42
29
28
10
1
23 ↓13
37
MODEL SCORES
45
28
24 ↑3
36
MODEL SCORES
82
31
29
19
19
25 ↓2
29
MODEL SCORES
53
31
26
5
26 ↓11
8
MODEL SCORES
14
9
2
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