Foreign brands dominate Consumer Reports' reliability rankings

BMW enters top three; Mercedes finishes last; Lincoln highest domestic brand; Tesla ranks 19th

November 15, 2022 12:00 PM

How the brands stack up

Here is how Consumer Reports presents the rankings of brands based on their average reliability scores for models in which the organization has adequate data. The list shows whether a brand's rank went up or down since the last Consumer Reports survey. It also identifies the most reliable and least reliable model scores within each brand.

Worse

Better

Rank	Change from last year	Brand	Brand average	Number of models	Most reliable model score	Least reliable model score
1	2	Toyota	72	17	96	39
2	1	Lexus	72	6	91	62
3	10	BMW	65	6	80	53
4	2	Mazda	65	5	85	52
5	NA	Honda	62	6	71	50
6	5	Audi	60	5	95	46
7	1	Subaru	59	6	80	64
8	1	Acura	57	3	64	45
9	6	Kia	54	9	84	5
10	14	Lincoln	54	3	82	8
11	7	Buick	54	3	55	52
12	9	Genesis	52	3	67	38
13	4	Hyundai	46	11	79	5
14	2	Volvo	45	4	58	28
15	7	Nissan	44	7	74	5
16	1	Ram	42	2	42	42
17	5	Cadillac	42	2	48	37
18	4	Ford	41	14	73	4
19	4	Tesla	40	3	58	25
20	10	Chevrolet	40	10	76	5
21	3	GMC	36	5	46	19
22	2	Volkswagen	31	5	49	1
23	1	Jeep	30	5	53	21
24	5	Mercedes-Benz	26	2	29	23

Note: The 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, Consumer Reports must have sufficient survey data for two or more models. Either due to low model count or insufficient data, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, lnfiniti, Jaguar, Land Rover, Maserati, Mini, Mitsubishi, Polestar, Porsche and Rivian are not ranked.

Source: Consumer Reports

Toyota, Lexus and BMW top Consumer Reports' survey of brand reliability for 2022, nudging Mazda from the podium after its No. 2 finish last year.

BMW climbed 10 spots to place third in the survey, released Tuesday during a presentation before the Automotive Press Association in Detroit. The brand's 3 and 4 series models improved to "above average" rankings, while the X3, X5, X7 and 5 series are ranked "average."

For the first time, Mercedes-Benz finished in last place in the Consumer Reports rankings, falling five spots.

Jake Fisher, senior director of auto testing at Consumer Reports, said the wide gap between the two leading German luxury brands can be attributed to how they implement new and advanced technology.

"The short answer of it really has to do with BMW and Mercedes-Benz's current approach to technology," he said.

BMW has generally scaled back the amount of technology it adopts in the cockpit, while Mercedes-Benz has embraced more technology to separate itself from its rivals, Fisher said.

More technology means more bugs and glitches, such as frozen or blank screens — leading to less reliability.

"A lot of technology doesn't necessarily work all the time, and there's more potential for problems," Fisher said. "Mercedes-Benz has chosen to really try to distinguish themselves with all of the latest gizmos and gadgets … and it's kind of come back to bite them."

Consumer Reports notes that in some cases, Mercedes-Benz owners have required hardware replacements.

Japanese brands continue to dominate the ranks of most reliable light vehicles in the world, with Toyota, Lexus, Mazda and Honda making up four of the top five. Lincoln, vaulting 14 spots, is the only domestic brand to place in the top 10.

Tesla gained four spots this year, but still finished 19th out of 24 brands.

Pickup trucks, one of the industry's biggest and most lucrative segments, continue to struggle with subpar reliability, the survey finds, with only seven of 17 models ranking "average" or better.

Large-scale changes at Chevrolet led to a 10-spot drop to No. 20 for the brand in the rankings. The Bolt and Bolt EUV are specifically called out for battery problems and electric drive failures, part of a larger trend that is seeing electric vehicles struggle with reliability.

‘Surgical changes' aid Asian brands

Overall, Asian brands account for seven of the top 10, a slight drop from 2021. There are some notable shifts, however — Kia, for example, climbed six spots from 2021, to ninth. In addition to BMW and Lincoln, Genesis moved up nine spots to rank 12th.

Toyota's Corolla Hybrid ranks as the most reliable model in the report, while the Corolla Cross, Prius and Corolla are also ranked "well above average."

Fisher said the continued dominance of Asian automakers in reliability comes from the brands' approach to redesigned and new models. Instead of reworking a model entirely, Asian brands tend to make "surgical changes," he said.

Non-Asian brands often "revolutionize" models with each new generation, Fisher said. For some consumers, such wholesale changes can be more exciting than the small-scale, incremental changes seen at Toyota or Honda, but can lead to unforeseen issues with items such as cockpit technology.

"Very often, when they make a change, they make a very large wholesale change," Fisher said. "That does create the opportunity for growing pains and problems."

Hybrids on top, EVs struggle

Hybrid vehicles rank as the most reliable segment in this year's report, while only four of 11 EVs tested rank "average" or better.

Fisher said hybrids and EVs differ in reliability in large part because of the markets and consumers they're trying to reach.

Hybrids appeal to practical people, and generally include technology that has been thoroughly tested and vetted over many years. While some may consider hybrids "boring," the lack of complex features protects against unreliability.

Automakers engineer EVs to be "exciting" to allure early adopters — often with the newest technology that has been untested, which can lead to overlooked bugs and other issues.

"It's very easy for someone to say, 'Electric vehicles are unreliable,' " Fisher said. "It's not so much that, as the point of any car that is loaded with technology is going to have problems. And right now, that's not where the hybrid market is at all."

Survey size

The 2022 survey covers more than 300,000 vehicles from the 2000 to 2022 model years as well as early 2023 model year vehicles, Consumer Reports said, with owners asked to report on 17 trouble areas such as engine, transmission and in-car electronics.

The nonprofit product testing organization anticipates reliability based on a brand's reliability history, previous-generation reliability, and the reliability of models with shared components.

Overall scores are based on predicted reliability, performance during road tests, owner satisfaction survey results, whether a model comes standard with key active safety systems, and results from third-party crash tests.

Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Infiniti, Jaguar, Land Rover, Maserati, Mini, Mitsubishi, Polestar, Porsche and Rivian are excluded from the 2022 study because of too few models or insufficient data, Consumer Reports said.

Survey changes

Beginning this month, Consumer Reports said it will start penalizing nameplates that do not come standard with automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection. Aiming to spur automakers to adopt better-performing automatic emergency braking systems, it will assign bonus points on a sliding scale based on a vehicle's performance in the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's new vehicle-to-pedestrian automatic emergency braking tests.

At the same time, the organization said it will no longer award a bonus point to vehicles that come standard with blind spot warning alone. Instead, rear cross traffic warning that alerts the driver to vehicles approaching from either side will also need to be standard equipment. Additionally, Consumer Reports will stop awarding the bonus point for standard forward collision warning, which is now widely included in automatic emergency braking systems.