Not One Single American Car Brand Is On The Top Half Of Consumer Reports’ 2018 Reliability Rankings

Tough year for domestic automakers. Not one brand made it on to the top half of Consumer Report’s Reliability Ranking list. The companies take up 11 of the bottom 12 spots.

Every year, Consumer Reports sends a questionnaire to its members to learn about issues that they’ve had with their cars over the past year, the severity of those issues, etc. This year’s survey got info on over 500,000 vehicles from model years 2000 to 2018. Consumer Reports gathered information about problems in twelve key areas such as engine internals, accessory drive, cooling system, transmission internals, drivetrain, fuel system, electrical system, brakes, climate control, exhaust, in-car electronics, and others.

The automakers that came out on top are Lexus and Toyota. Subaru, Kia, and Infinity also stayed in the top six spots. German, Japanese, and Korean brands are in the middle, with Audi, BMW, and Mini coming in at numbers seven through nine, Porsche at 11, VW at 16, and Mercedes at 17. Hyundai and Genesis, Acura, Nissan, and Honda are also in the middle, ranked at 10, 12, 13, 14, and 15, respectively.

Left at the bottom are the Americans (and Sweden’s brand Volvo because of alleged infotainment issues). Ford is the “best of the worst” at 18 and Buick dropped 11 spots to 19. Lincoln, Dodge, Jeep, Chevy, and Chrysler are ranked between 20 and 24, while GMC, Ram, Tesla, and Cadillac are in positions 25 to 28. The American brands that dropped the most were Chrysler, Tesla, and Chevrolet.