Which Brands Make the Best Cars? – Consumer Reports
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Consumer Reports rated cars from 31 brands on reliability, owner satisfaction, safety, and road-test scores. Here’s how the manufacturers rank, based on their vehicles’ Overall Scores.
This list ranks car manufacturers from best to worst, based on the quality of their vehicles. To assess this, we calculated the averages of their new vehicles’ Overall Score, a combination of the results from our road tests, safety assessments, and reliability and owner satisfaction surveys. If you’re shopping for a new car, this list is the place to start your research.
This year, Subaru again earned the top spot as the best car brand. “While Subaru models provide good performance and comfort, they also excel in areas that may not be immediately apparent during a test drive,” says Jake Fisher, CR’s senior director of auto testing. “They share proven parts that help assure consistently great reliability. They also use cutting-edge safety systems and perform well in our emergency handling and braking tests.”
BMW was a close second, holding its title as the benchmark luxury brand. Fisher says, “BMW has made very highly desirable models for years, and their reliability easily outshines all of their European rivals.”
Lexus slid back to sixth place due to models like the GX SUV dropping to average reliability, and the absence of the strong-performing ES sedan, which is being replaced with a new version.
Lincoln was the biggest mover, climbing 17 positions, partly because its aging product line has become more reliable. For the same reason, Tesla gained eight positions. For any brand, entirely new models tend to bring reliability risks. We saw this with fresh electric vehicles like the Audi Q4 E-Tron, which, along with discontinuing the reliable A4, caused Audi to drop 10 spots. And brands with only a few vehicles in their lineup are especially vulnerable to score changes when reliability dips. Chrysler, for example, produces one minivan in three iterations. Predicted reliability for all three is below average, which pulled down the brand’s Overall Score, nine spots down from last year.
Car buyers should look for brands that rank high in our ratings over multiple years, but it’s also important to look at the Overall Score—and predicted reliability—of the specific vehicle you’re considering. Even companies known for high quality can produce bad cars.
We include an automaker in our brand rankings only if we’ve tested at least two of its current models. For this reason, you won’t see ratings here for Fiat, Infiniti, Jaguar, Lucid, Maserati, Polestar, or Ram.
Consumer Reports bases the Overall Score for a car on four key factors: road-test performance, reliability, owner satisfaction, and safety. For the road-test score, our experts put vehicles through more than 50 tests. The predicted reliability ratings are based on our auto surveys, where thousands of CR members report the problems they’ve had with their cars in 20 possible trouble areas. CR’s owner satisfaction predictions are based on whether members said in our surveys that they would buy the same vehicle again if given the chance. Safety (which isn’t shown) includes an assessment of available crash test results from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, with points awarded or deducted depending on the results. Our safety ratings also depend on whether vehicles come standard with a proven crash-prevention system, or whether the manufacturer sells safety technology only as an upgrade.
Learn more about how Consumer Reports tests cars.
• Who Makes the Most Reliable New Cars?
• Which Brands Make the Best Used Cars?
• Owner Satisfaction Ratings: Best and Worst Car Brands
• Which Car Brands Have the Highest Road-Test Scores?
• Who Owns Which Car Brands?
• Car Brands Ranked by Maintenance and Repair
Jeff S. Bartlett
Jeff S. Bartlett is the managing editor for the autos team at Consumer Reports. He has been with CR since 2005. Previously, Jeff served as the online editorial director of Motor Trend for 11 years. Throughout his career, Jeff has driven thousands of cars, many on racetracks around the globe. Follow him on X: @JeffSBartlett
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