Photo: Consumer Reports
A nonprofit organization dedicated to unbiased testing and research, Consumer Reports is far from perfect. You only need to wind back a few years to when CR awarded the Tesla Model S P85 a whopping 103 points on a scale of 1 to 100 to understand how wrong these evaluations can be.
Consumer Reports made the headlines earlier this year as well, crowning Mazda as the most reliable automotive brand of the year back in March.
Fast-forward to the present day, and CR has ranked automakers once again to “reveal how their new models are likely to hold up.” Emphasis on "likely" because member surveys were used to estimate the predicted reliability, not the real reliability.
Out of 100 possible points, Mazda received 83, or 9 more than Toyota and 12 more than Lexus. These brands are joined in the top 5 by Buick and Honda, and we’re already facing a bit of a problem. More to the point, Buick in fourth sounds uncanny.
As a brief refresher, everything that the General Motors-owned automaker sells today is a badge-engineered Chevrolet, GMC, or Cadillac. Even the Encore GX, which is imported from South Korea alongside the Trailblazer, utilizes the same platform, engine options, and transmissions as the golden bowtie’s model. These being said, care to guess how Consumer Reports has ranked the other General Motors brands?
GMC is listed in 16th place with 43 points, Chevrolet in 17th with 42 points, and Cadillac in 21st with 38 points. As you already know from the previous paragraph, all of these models are made in the same facilities by the same workers and robots. In other words, there shouldn’t be such a serious discrepancy between Buick and Cadillac.
On dead last with merely 8 points under its belt, the Lincoln Motor Company “dropped significantly over SUVs with major problems.” The luxury brand and Ford “are plagued with similar problems,” but I still can’t get my head around one thing. How is it possible for the Blue Oval to be listed in 22nd place with 38 points while Chevrolet is historically worse in terms of build quality, quality control, as well as quality assurance?
Oh, and another thing. The Mazda MX-5 Miata has been awarded the highest rating for predicted reliability at 98 out of 100 points. The question is, why didn’t Consumer Reports include the Japanese roadster in the 10 Most Reliable Cars list? At the time of writing, the Toyota Prius is the leader of that list with an overall score of 93 points.
Don’t know about you, but I think that Consumer Reports should take a break to think of a better evaluation system.
Fast-forward to the present day, and CR has ranked automakers once again to “reveal how their new models are likely to hold up.” Emphasis on "likely" because member surveys were used to estimate the predicted reliability, not the real reliability.
Out of 100 possible points, Mazda received 83, or 9 more than Toyota and 12 more than Lexus. These brands are joined in the top 5 by Buick and Honda, and we’re already facing a bit of a problem. More to the point, Buick in fourth sounds uncanny.
As a brief refresher, everything that the General Motors-owned automaker sells today is a badge-engineered Chevrolet, GMC, or Cadillac. Even the Encore GX, which is imported from South Korea alongside the Trailblazer, utilizes the same platform, engine options, and transmissions as the golden bowtie’s model. These being said, care to guess how Consumer Reports has ranked the other General Motors brands?
GMC is listed in 16th place with 43 points, Chevrolet in 17th with 42 points, and Cadillac in 21st with 38 points. As you already know from the previous paragraph, all of these models are made in the same facilities by the same workers and robots. In other words, there shouldn’t be such a serious discrepancy between Buick and Cadillac.
On dead last with merely 8 points under its belt, the Lincoln Motor Company “dropped significantly over SUVs with major problems.” The luxury brand and Ford “are plagued with similar problems,” but I still can’t get my head around one thing. How is it possible for the Blue Oval to be listed in 22nd place with 38 points while Chevrolet is historically worse in terms of build quality, quality control, as well as quality assurance?
Oh, and another thing. The Mazda MX-5 Miata has been awarded the highest rating for predicted reliability at 98 out of 100 points. The question is, why didn’t Consumer Reports include the Japanese roadster in the 10 Most Reliable Cars list? At the time of writing, the Toyota Prius is the leader of that list with an overall score of 93 points.
Don’t know about you, but I think that Consumer Reports should take a break to think of a better evaluation system.
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