Car Brands Reliability: How They Stack Up

We saw a significant shuffling of car brands as we scrutinized this year’s data. Our brand-level rankings are based on an average predicted-reliability score across each brand’s model line. We also tracked whether each brand’s rank went up or down since our 2015 survey.

Infiniti is the biggest mover this year, jumping 16 places to crack the top 10. It has a small model lineup, so slight improvements in reliability can result in big brand gains. Three brands dropped significantly: Subaru, Volvo, and Volkswagen. They also have small model lineups, so one or two models suffering a drop in reliability had big repercussions for each brand.

This year we converted our Predicted Reliability Score to a 0 to 100 point scale, with the average rating falling between 41 and 60 points. Better or worse than average ratings fall on either side of that range.

Editor's Note: This article also appeared in the December 2016 issue of Consumer Reports magazine.

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