Meet the toughest car critics in America

Sure, they look nice—friendly, even. But the 28 people above, shown at Consumer Reports’ 327-acre auto test center in Connecticut, are brutal. They put cars through challenges that no other publication demands. Their 580 years of combined experience in testing, engineering, and data analysis make our Annual Autos Issue the single most authoritative guide out there.

What makes our auto testing unique?

We spent $2.7 million on cars last year. We buy all of our tested cars and don’t rely on freebies or on exotic press junkets paid for by automakers.

We shop like you shop. We buy cars anonymously, at dealerships. Reviewers for other publications often base their judgments on loaners hand-picked by manufacturers.

We drive. And drive some more. Our tested vehicles are each driven thousands of miles over several months. At many other publications reviews are often based on just a day or week of seat time.

We’re test crazy. Every vehicle undergoes more than 50 tests, including evaluations for braking, accident avoidance, fuel economy, and acceleration.

We’re unbought and unbossed. We take no advertising of any kind, so we have no one to please but you. Which is why . . .

We tell it like it is. Lots of magazines will list their top cars of the year. We’re the lone voice that will also reveal the clunkers, junkers, and rip-offs.

We can tell the future. This is what no one else can do: We can predict how reliable your new car will be based on our exclusive surveys that cover more than a million ownership experiences per year, as reported by our subscribers.

—Ellen Kampinsky

Learn more about how we test cars.

This article also appeared in the April 2015 issue of Consumer Reports magazine.

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Hits and misses from Consumer Reports’ testing
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Best new cars for under $25,000

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