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.
Then I bought an AMC Hornet Sportabout. The seat covers shredded at about 30,000 miles.
Then came a 1977 Chevy Impala. It was a pretty good car.
Following was a 1983 (I think) Buick Century. Freeze plug fell out of the engine and the dealer couldn't figure out how to fix it...had the car for over a week.
My wife bought a 1991 Dodge Caravan. It ate two transmissions, replaced the fuel injectors, had to replace the temperature control module in the dash, starter and cruise control among other things.
I owned a couple of Volkswagon Sciroccos and had trouble with both.
Then I bought a 1991 Acura Integra. Had to replace a rear shock in warranty and that was it, other than scheduled maintenance, for 100,000 miles. My wife now has a 2000 Toyota Sienna with which we have had no problems and I have a 2003 Acura 3.2CL. It has been through two recalls for some items but no problems.
When, back at the end of World War II, the Big Three auto makers told Edward Deming to pound sand that is when they sealed their fate.
The rest is history.
Our only choice is to use prison labor and eliminate child worker laws.
I wouldn't touch an SUV from Chevy.
Give me my Jeep.....
I wish Honda or Toyota, or any of the car manufacturers, for that matter, would produce a hybrid minivan in the US. There is one on the road in Japan already. It is a Toyota, but a little smaller than the Siena.
Yeah. I've been wondering if Ford might do a Freestar Hybrid. I also don't see why they couldn't do a Freestyle Hybrid. I think they're cute; they kinda remind me of the Subaru SUV/wagons.
Then it would stand to reason that low-wage America is more in need of a Ford plant.
As an aside (general question to the forum), does anybody else here think that some of as are confusing Consumer Reports with the Consumer Union?
In Japan, Mazda (aka in Japan as Matsuda) is considered the Fords of Japanese cars.
My 1987 Toyota Van Wagon has over 345,000 miles and the engine hasn't been touched yet.
I purchased a Nissan Pathfinder in 1992, drove it to 160K, never did a thing to it, swapped to my brother-in-law for a ratty old pick-up I needed to do some hauling. The Pathfinder is still running and over 250K. Brakes and a timing belt are all the maintenance it ever had.
I bought a 2002 GMC Envoy and it's a piece of crap. The coating on the radio knobs wore off in about 2 months. They replaced the radio and the new coatings wore off in the same amount of time. They said "we'll replace it every time". That's what's wrong with US-designed cars, they think you want to visit them to have things fixed. Japenese-designed cars don't need fixin'. The Envoy also has multiple pieces of lose wind-seal rubber that I push back on every day or so, a poorly fit rear door, and a bad ride. It sits cock-eyed and has since I bought it. No dealer has been able to fix this, claiming it's made that way, driver-side bias one fool claimed. It's the last US-designed car I'll ever buy.
Instead, I can buy a Japanese-designed, US-built car from Honda, Toyota or Nissan, from a plant with highly skilled, well-paid US citizens as employees. I can also purchase stock in these companies, as any Japanese can purchase stock in GM/Ford. It is not patriotic to support inefficient, poorly run US auto companies when the Japanese companies will soon employ more Americans than they do. Capital should reward value and quality, not complacency and laziness. Read the WSJ article about the auto industry job bank if you want a taste of how foolish these companies are. If you like the product, fine, but nobody should claim that buying an American lemon is something that's good for the country.
I want a Vincent Black Shadow.
To be serious, maybe if the big three didn't pay billions for people not to work, the prices would be lower and the quality would be higher.
And folks wonder why consumers buy Japanese cars instead of 'Murican.
My Acura Integra has held up VERY well. I've had ONE "premature failure" of a piece of equipment on it--the radiator "sprung a leak" at about 100K miles and had to be replaced.
From what I know of the American automotive industry there are very serious problems they can't seem to unlearn.
I changed the original water pump in my 1987 Toyota Van Wagon at 340,000 miles.
I don't put much stock in these consumer magazines. They rank the Ford Ranger low and the Ford Ranger has proven to me to be a very reliable, cheap and worthy small truck.
I don't care how good you folks tell me the Jap cars are, I don't like them and I'm never going to buy one. I find them overpriced, overrated, overhyped, underpowered and uninspiring.
I once had a co-worker who said he would never buy an American vehicle so he went out and bought a Mazda Tribute. I had to explain to him he just bought a Ford Escape with Mazda badges. He wouldn't listen.
Like BMW in South Carolina, Hyundai in Alabama, et al?
Most of the Japanese brands are manufactured in the US or Canada with up to 75% domestic-made parts. The names are high on the list because of engineering, not because American workers suck.
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