Years ago I decided to ignore consumer reports reliability ratings. Life has been good ever since. Here's why.

What CR collects and publishes is not reliability data of different auto manufacturers. Rather, it is people's opinions of the reliability of their cars. These are two different things. I used to subscribe to CR, and as such, received their survey used to collect the data. The survey corresponded closely to the little red & black circles they publish. What the survey asked was for you to identify the make, model, & year of your vehicle(s), and to identify any areas in which you experienced major problems.

There was no guidance on what constituted major vs. minor, or any other kind of problem. There was no guidance on what constituted a problem (e.g. a mechanical breakdown vs. the radio only has 6 FM preset buttons). Further, no documentation was required with the survey. CR was not examining the repairs actually required on various vehicles. So the data they collect is actually opinions.

The group they survey consists of their own subscribers. For the last 25 years they have been telling that group that Hondoytas are the most reliable vehicles. What would you expect that group to echo back when surveyed?

So I ignore CR and buy what I want. I might have a different view if they collected repair data and failure reports (e.g. wheel bearing failed, right front window doesn't go up & down any longer), collated the data and generated reports from there. But IMHO what they are conducting is an opinion survey, and I'm not interested in what the average consumer thinks of their car.

- JimY