Posted on 05/08/2025 8:26:14 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
In today’s environment, buying a new car has become a stretch for many households - fueling demand in the used-car market.
But not all used vehicles are created equal, and reliability plays a major role in long-term ownership costs.
For buyers looking to avoid expensive repairs down the road, brand reputation is more important than ever.
In this graphic, Visual Capitalist's Marcus Lu ranked the best used-car brands of 2025, using data from Consumer Reports.
To come up with these reliability scores, Consumer Reports asked its members to report how many problems they’ve had with their vehicles over the past 12 months.
This analysis focused only on cars from the 2015 to 2020 model year, with a sample size of over 150,000 vehicles.
From this data we can see that Japanese brands are generally the most reliable when buying used, with the lowest ranked Japanese brand being Subaru, in ninth place. Toyota and its luxury arm, Lexus, hold the top two spots, while Honda and Acura come in fourth and fifth.
Brands like Lexus and Toyota have a history of conservative redesigns, incrementally improving their entire product line rather than introducing many all-new systems. Our data consistently shows over time that cars from those brands are reliable when new, and they continue to be reliable as they age.
Steven Elek, Senior Automotive Data Analyst at Consumer Reports
Consumer Reports has released its latest list of top used-car picks, all of which offer good reliability, safety, and value across various price points. These selections are based on comprehensive road tests and owner satisfaction surveys.
For more detailed information and additional recommendations, visit the full article on Consumer Reports.
If you enjoyed this post, check out our ranking of the most reliable new-car brands based on data from J.D. Power.
I’m a Lexus RX 350 guy now. Bought one 4 years ago and never had a better all around good to drive + useful and reliable vehicle ever. I’m on #2 Lexus now - the first one had a bad result with some bad weather and a hydroplane. Which I walked away from without even a sore neck.
What kind of problems?
Bingo
Back in the 1970s I helped a friend adjust the clutch on his boss’s 12 cylinder Jag convertible. It took us all day. We both vowed after that to never buy a Jaguar.
They are strikingly beautiful cars, but overly complicated from an engineering standpoint.
$2,000...
He is a Ford truck salesman and this just fell into his lap...
Volvo stopped being a wholly Swedish-owned car manufacturer in 1999 when the Volvo Group (which owned the car manufacturing business) sold it to Ford Motor Company. While Volvo Cars continues to have a significant presence in Sweden, and some models are still produced there, the brand is now owned by the Chinese company, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group.
The Volvos made in the 60's-80's were fine.
My carpenter has an older 2wd tacoma. Every year he drives it to somebody in VT to have the frame "oiled".
Like the $4,000 steering rack on my 2011 E90 with 120k miles and not a speck of rust. :(
My sleeper. 2005 Honda Odyssey, 235,000 miles. Original exhaust and struts. Daily driver. Took the family to a wedding and back, 1,200 mile round trip. Almost hate to say it, but it is in the top 2 of my favorite vehicles owned.
I subscribed to Consumer Reports for about ten years.
They had a large number of subscribers back then in the 1990-2005 to their magazine.
Every year they sent out a survey to their subscribers. It was about ten pages long. They asked you to fill out the items you owned from automobiles to appliances.
They would use this data to come up with these ratings. So, the amount was much larger than a typical paid for survey.
This is how they would know that brakes were an issue on Honda Accords back in the late 1980s. Or that Chevy Suburban’s brakes also were a problem.
This was in addition to the actual products like dishwashers that they would actually buy 20 different models and test them. Then publish the results in an article.
I have always found that their ratings were the best because they do NOT have advertising. Therefore, they are not influenced by manufacturers.
Especially when it comes to household appliances.
I also find that they are pretty accurate when it comes to reporting issues with used automobiles. Which is why I buy Lexus, Toyota, Honda. I also buy Whirlpool Fridges, Kitchen Aid dishwashers, Makita power tools, etc.
What I really do not understand is WHY people continue to buy Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge automobiles. I understand Jeep’s are cool/image. The rest of their products are ALWAYS on the bottom of all these reports for THIRTY YEARS or more.
Jeep has not made a good product since they stopped making the Willeys.
I just bought a 2025, I'll let you know :)
My wife had an Odyssey too. We bought it new around 2002. It was a very well made vehicle. It was comfortable to drive. Had plenty of power in the V6 engine. Plus it had the ECO drive that would turn off 3 cylinders to save fuel on the highway. It was red with tan leather interior and a sun roof.
The only thing that eventually died was the motor for the passenger side sliding door. They all died eventually. You could still open and close it manually. We never paid to repair it. Sold it for $7K cash.
The funny thing is we folded down that third row bench seat into the floor in back and NEVER used it. Then we took out the middle row jump seat and eventually the middle row seat behind the driver. We only had one kid, so my wife used it as the dog van too. I built a platform for the back and had two dog crates on it for its lifetime.
Those rear seats were basically new when when we sold it. Except for the one my son rode in as a baby/child(now 26).
I had a 1976 Volvo 240 DL. 2.4 liter 4 cylinder. It was a tank. It got stolen from the place that was replacing the clutch. It was a 4 speed standard too.
I took that money and bought a used 1982 Volvo 240 DL. Except the previous owner turned back the odometer. Then sold it to his girlfriend, who sold it to me. So, instead of 50K miles it had over a hundred. Everything kept dying. Water pump. Fuel pump. Alternator. I traded it in on the 1988 Toyota PU. Which was my first brand new vehicle.
It might not have been the motor that died in the sliding door. There’s like 8-10 switches in there and one of them could have gone bad. I had the same problem, I located the bad switch and tried contact cleaner. It worked for a while but stopped. The kids don’t use that side.
The older Volvos were good cars, then Ford bought them. Had a friend who owned Saabs in the 80’s. He could and did fix everything on them himself.
a professional auto mechanic friend told me BMWs were throw-away cars because the cylinders were so close together in the block that they couldn’t be rebored and that BMW refuses to supply replacement blocks ...
This ranking is for 5 year old cars. CRs ranking for new cars is much different in that the top tier have tanked while the middle got some better. Example, Lexus Toyota tanked and KIA is better (not great). But any car from the last five years is newish and complex, hard and expensive to fix.
One internet guru says to simply not buy anything made in the last 5 years. Too late for me and my 24 Telluride.
**Proven technology such as front engine, rear wheel drive is highly reliable and much easier to fix then the crowded front engine design.**
Yep. We had Chevy Citation in the mid 80s. The cast iron 2.5 was a very good motor. The transmission was good for less than 100k. The steering rack should have been a recall. Went through two in 60k. We went back to front engine-RWD for the next 11 years. Reliable, easy to work on.
Then had two chrysler minivans. The pushrod v6s were good, the transmissions not so great. Went back to FE-RWD with Chevy Blazers. Have one we bought in 09 with 96k on it. It now has 312k and hasn’t had any major work done. Will use a quart of motor oil every 5k. And still looks good.
Bought another Blazer in 2020 because it was very cheap (transmission was suspect, however, the engine was a low mile replacement from the original that was driven while overheating and was ruined). Trans finally gave up last summer. I was only a couple miles from home and limped back in 1st gear.
I pulled the trans, had it rebuilt, and put it back in. I always felt the 4.3 in it was unusually strong but didn’t want to push it with the weak trans. Now I can stomp it if needed, and that thing will GO!
Wife’s 07 highlander has been a good rig. Its at 313k, so we now mostly just use locally and if we need 6 or 7 seatbelts. The wildlife like it: 2 deer kills and one that limped away (probably a broken leg), and a turkey strike.
My son has a 2016 Mercedes suv that we nicknamed ‘the Mercyless’ because it has been such a high dollar maintenence hog.
I understood your concern was the battery becoming depleted due the combo of an alternator / charging issue and the DRLs being on while driving. I therefore assumed you were not driving at night, as the same depleetion issue would come into play, perhaps even more quickly due to higher power-draw of headlight vs. DRL usage.
I broke rule #8: Never assume.
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