Automotive Insider

Reliability Vs. Performance

According to Consumer Report’s 2009 Annual Auto Reliability Survey, you still can’t judge a book by its cover, or in this case, a car by its brand-name.  Of course, being reliable isn’t enough for a vehicle to be recommended by Consumer Reports; it has to perform, too.

The Honda Insight and Toyota Yaris are both good examples of that.  While they both performed excellently as far as reliability was concerned, their actual performance came as a disappointment.

Also, a higher price definitely doesn’t seem to mean higher reliability.  It looks like automakers may be targeting the family market with their most reliable vehicles. 

Overall, Consumer Reports found that small cars, family cars, and hybrids are the way to go this year, according to their reliability data.  Although foreign automakers may be snatching up American market-share hand over fist, of the American automakers, Ford at least, is still holding up under examination as producing quality automobiles. 

Although GM still isn’t impressing anyone on the reliability front, some of its newer products are good performers with average reliability ratings.  In the end, there’s a real lack of consistency there, with less than half of its products showing average or better reliability.

Chrysler still had a big chunk of inventory with very poor reliability — only one of theirs was recommended.  Industry insiders suggest that their lack of improvement has to do with the few and far between new models. 

Asian brands continue the trend of superior reliability, although a few outliers received poor scores.  Seventy-five percent of the top scorers in reliability were Asian brands this year, with Toyota topping the list, followed by Honda. 

Japanese vehicles, especially, Consumer Reports found, showed real consistency in producing superior product.  Honda, in fact, had no vehicles that received below average reliability scores.