Posted on 03/02/2006 6:09:12 AM PST by Graybeard58
DETROIT -- For the first time in nine years, all of the top picks in Consumer Reports' annual vehicle guide are made by Japanese automakers.
The Honda Civic is the magazine's top small sedan, while the Toyota Highlander Hybrid is the top mid-sized sport utility vehicle, according to results released Wednesday. Vehicles from Nissan Motor Co. and Subaru, a division of Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd., round out the top picks in 10 categories.
Asian brands also fared best in the magazine's survey of vehicle reliability. Toyota Motor Corp.'s Lexus brand was first, while Honda was second and the Toyota brand was third. Ford Motor Co.'s Mercury brand was the only domestic nameplate to crack the top 10.
Consumer Reports' rankings are important to automakers, even though companies can't use the ratings in their advertising. Consumer Reports spokeswoman Lauren Hackett said the April auto issue is consistently the magazine's most popular, selling more than 300,000 copies at newsstands. That's twice as many copies as its second-most popular issue, the November electronics issue.
Consumer Reports named its top picks based on road and track tests, evaluations of comfort, convenience and fuel economy, crash protection ratings from the government and insurance industry and readers' reliability rankings. The magazine said it recently tested more than 200 vehicles to come up with its top picks.
Honda had the most winners, snagging top picks in five of the 10 categories. Besides the redesigned Civic, the Honda Accord was the top family sedan between $20,000 and $30,000 and the Acura TL was the top upscale sedan between $30,000 and $40,000. The Honda Odyssey was the top minivan and the Honda Ridgeline, which is Honda's first entry in the pickup market, was the top pickup.
Toyota and Subaru each had two winners, including the Subaru Forester for small SUV and the Toyota Prius for "green car." Nissan had one, the M35 luxury sedan, which the magazine called "an excellent balance of performance, comfort and handling."
Reliability rankings are based on a survey of Consumer Reports subscribers who are asked if they have had serious problems with their vehicles in the past 12 months. The survey questions readers about 17 different trouble spots. For this year's survey, readers rated their experience with 810,000 vehicles from the 1998 through 2005 model years.
Consumer Reports said Japanese and Korean brands had 12 problems per 100 vehicles, while U.S. automakers had 18 problems and European makers had 21 problems. Asian and U.S. automakers have been improving their scores but appeared to stall in 2005, the magazine said. European automakers' ratings haven't changed substantially in the last four years, the magazine said.
After Lexus, Honda and Toyota, the brands rounding out the top ten for reliability were Mitsubishi, Subaru, Acura, Scion, Mercury, Mazda and Suzuki. The ten lowest-rated brands were Audi, Infiniti, Saturn, Lincoln, Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Land Rover, Hummer and Porsche.
You're right overall, but this is because competition, mostly from the Japanese, forced them to be. The Japanese are fanatics about quality, not just about cars but about everything. If you live there you quickly find the standard of product quality and customer service is amazing. American cars are better only because the Japanese made them better.
Anecdotes are a dime a dozen, but here's mine. I've owned a Mazda since 1994. I drive it modestly; it's got about 125,000 miles on it. We've owned three other Japanese cars since 1995, and all of them compare very favorably to American cars others in my family drive. On my Mazda I've changed the clutch and the muffler, and that's it.
OTOH, my brother just bought a brand new Ford pickup and had to take it in within days because it stopped working in the middle of the road due, apparently, to a "bad weld." While it was covered by warranty, the truck was so new that the dealer had to hold the truck for almost two weeks while he waited for parts.
"...my guess is that the majority of subscribers are Republicans."
Ok, our guesses are 180 degrees out. Anyone know how to find the answer?
But as far as reliability is concerned, I can't imagine that the Mazda would be any better than the Ford.>>>>>>>>>
I know a young man who is one of those die-hard Chevy lovers, a throwback to the sixties who loves to put down Ford. I asked him once what he thought of Mazda and he replied that he thought it was a much better brand than Ford although, of course, not as good as Chevy. I then asked him if he realized that in many cases Ford and Mazda are the same vehicle with different nameplates, he gave me a "duh" look. It reminds me of when I used to hear people arguing over whether Johnson or Evinrude was the best outboard boat motor when they were actually the same with two different nameplates.
I don't have any data either, mikey565, but my guess is that the majority of subscribers are liberals. Just a guess.
I didn't see Mazda in the top ten either.
Like GM, Ford is probably putting $30 an hour into labor and $70 an hour into benefits.
Anyone in our area who got an offer for 20 and hour job with 40 an hour benefits would climb Everest to get that job.
Ford doesn't need to move overseas....it needs to move to low-wage America.
How can that possibly be? CU says Audi's are no good.
Where does an A6 rank in CR (not CU)? Curious.
I'm in rural Ohio. I have a friend who bought a 2000 square foot brick in need of some paint and pointing, but for only $83000.
For 60000 I can get a large, liveable but old house.
Ford doesn't need to move overseas....it needs to move to low-wage America. >>>>>>>>>>
No, it needs to move to REASONABLE WAGE America! People in low wage America have a problem buying groceries.
I'm with you on that, but they're going to have to break the union to do it.
Gospel in my family too.
Proxy manufacturers.
Hyundai America building Fords new line of "Y-Type Econo Cars."
One of my best friends is a Ford Engineer, and he believes that Japanese companies (other than Mitsubishi) are clearly superior to the Big 3 and Toyota is by far the best automobile company on earth. And that Hyundai is rapidly improving and he'd buy one if he wanted a cheap new car right out of college or something.
He also thinks Ford is run by morons. The Asian companies are simply better run, and run by people with experience actually building cars, not business-school finance types.
So, I can believe someone who actually works in the industry, and Consumer Reports, or I can believe you. Not a difficult call there.
I don't see resale value as worth anything unless the car sat on the showroom for it's entire life. My cars all have 200,000+ on them when I trade them in (between 2.5 years and 3 years)and I have to beg the dealer to take them because they go to the auction more than I can.
I've got a 93 Geo Sonoma with about 150,000 miles. There isn't even a hint of a leak anywhere on the entire engine. It's really amazing everytime I think about it.
Why don't they build their cars that way?
Japanese Sedans are too pricey....so much so that they appear to be targeted at top income-quartile America and above.
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