Consumer Reports 2016 Reliability Rankings

[Bob]

I am not sure I can trust any list that considers Audi to be the third most reliable brand...

http://www.autonews.com/article/2015102 ... /151029991

The other big news is that the Tesla Model S is off their recommended list. Who would have guessed that a complex, expensive luxury sedan from a start up auto maker would be unreliable?

[kevm14]

Some of those issues have nothing to do with what I consider to be reliability. On the other hand, the Tesla issues do.

[kevm14]

I think I've ranted on this before, but i want to know how many major problems I can expect as a future 2nd, 3rd or even 4th owner. The idea of new car reliability rankings seems silly and not useful.

[kevm14]

And oh by the way, cars like my CTS-V end up in a weird spot with better reliability as a used car than a new car. So there's that.

[Adam]

Fiat is in last place? I don't believe it.

[Bob]

And oh by the way, cars like my CTS-V end up in a weird spot with better reliability as a used car than a new car. So there's that.

I think many Audi/VW products are the exact opposite of this. They might start off okay and certainly look and feel high quality, but by the 3rd or 4th owner and 100k+, they are ticking time bombs. I still think the GTI would be a nearly perfect daily driver if it wasn't for the reliability issues.

[kevm14]

I think many Audi/VW products are the exact opposite of this. They might start off okay and certainly look and feel high quality, but by the 3rd or 4th owner and 100k+, they are ticking time bombs. I still think the GTI would be a nearly perfect daily driver if it wasn't for the reliability issues.

You just have to take one look at any given dealer service history printout on many of the CTS-V1s I looked at. Most of them look like horror stories. But the cars essentially get ironed out and that trend largely does not continue. Some of the things that appear are things you only would get fixed specifically because the warranty covers it, and you have very high expectations (but may put up with it on a used car of significantly less cost).

JD Power's initial quality survey probably perfectly embodies the exact information that I do not care about.

Consumer Report's reliability rankings, based on some of the "issues" some cars have, unfortunately reads a lot like JD Powers quality surveys (number of problems per 100 cars or whatever, where a "problem" could be as stupid as someone finds the climate controls annoying to use, but that is weighted the same as a transmission failure). At least Consumer Reports takes other things into account, but they are mixed in with totally unimportant information and thus distorts the results to be not that meaningful.

That said, while you could quibble about the exact placement of car makes, you CAN see some trends that seem to make sense (with the obvious and notable exception of Audi).