The US Consumer Reports magazine is one of the most authoritative and credible when it comes to evaluating consumer products. Its latest issue, dated April 2014, has some interesting findings on reliability and other issues that will be of keen interest to car lovers and potential buyers. The car evaluation report card in the issue is intended to show which brands are making the best all-round vehicles based on how models performed on comprehensive road tests, with the emphasis being on reliability and feedback from the magazine?s subscribers.
The report opens with the statement that car manufacturing today is becoming more complex because of all the sophisticated technology that is being put into the higher-end models and even some of the mass-market models. Does the induction of all these advanced features have an impact on reliability and performance? While this report card may be based on cars available in the US, car manufacturers maintain the same standards all over the world for obvious reasons. In fact, the brand that earned the highest score is one that is not available in India, yet, but the makers have a major Indian footprint. The brand is Lexus, the luxury model from Toyota, and which comes in at number one for the second straight year. Says the report: ?Its models are usually quiet, comfortable and fuel-efficient, and they?re among the most reliable cars made.?
Following close behind Lexus, which scored 79, are two rivals: Acura, the luxury division of Honda, and Audi, Volkswagen?s luxury brand. With models that are reliable, well-finished and somewhat sporty, Acura earned a score of 75. Audi came in at 74, thanks to its cars? well-crafted interiors, nice handling and good mileage from its range of modern, efficient engines. Plus, Audi models have shown improved reliability over the past years? tests. The magazine calculates each brand?s overall score using an equally weighted composite of road test and reliability scores for each of its models that have been tested and is added to by what owners have to say in an Annual Auto Survey. This year, the brands that were not tested included Fiat, Jaguar, Land Rover, Mini, Mitsubishi and Porsche because there was lack of sufficient data to make valid comparisons. Each manufacturer has to be tested based on three current models.
There were other notable findings which are equally interesting:
* Japanese brands dominated, taking seven of the top eight spots. Following the three highest-scoring are Subaru, Toyota, Mazda, Honda and Infiniti. The only Japanese brand that wasn?t in the upper half is Nissan, which ranks 18th out of the 23 brands evaluated.
* At the other end of the spectrum, Jeep and Ford tied for the lowest score. Jeep has a mix of spotty reliability and mediocre road-test results, and Ford continues to have reliability problems.
* Audi?s luxurious, fun-to-drive and fuel-efficient cars earned it the highest overall average road-test score of 83. Mercedes-Benz followed at 81 and Chrysler, Infiniti and Subaru tied at 80. Jeep has the lowest road-test score, dragged down by the Wrangler, which scored 20 points.
* Lexus is the only brand to achieve an excellent overall reliability score, with the following six brands earning a very good rating.
* In general, luxury brands outperformed their mainstream stablemates. In other words, Lexus outscored Toyota, Acura was higher than Honda, Audi outpaced Volkswagen and Infiniti fared far better than Nissan.
