Posted on 10/16/2007 10:27:25 AM PDT by eraser2005
NEW YORK, CNNMoney.com -- The Toyota brand has lost its top position for iron-clad reliability, according to an influential Consumer Reports survey released Tuesday.
The survey dropped Toyota from first to fifth place - behind Honda, Acura, Scion and Subaru - in average vehicle reliability. The rankings are based on average predicted reliability for all models sold under a given brand.
Brands made by Toyota Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co. still dominate the rankings: Scion is Toyota's low-priced car brand and Acura is Honda's luxury car brand.
Consumer Reports said it no longer recommends V6 versions of Toyota's Camry or V8 versions of its Tundra pick-up because of poor reliability.
In the past, because Toyota (Charts) products have so consistently proved reliable, the magazine would assume at least average reliability for Toyota's brand new cars, without waiting for survey data from owners.
But from now on, the magazine will wait for a full year of reliability survey data to come in before it recommends a Toyota product - as it does with most other manufacturers.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
Also some good news for domestics... They now rate 93% of all Ford/Lincoln/Mercury models as average or better (and that is WITH statistical data to back them up)
FWIW, average is a 3% or lower failure rate
Wow, even behind their budget Scion brand huh? I know three people with Scions and each of them has had a lot of problems with them.
How can this be? Toyota having “Q” issues?
Yep, going against the religion again!
ping....
CR must have discovered that Toyota doesn’t support the Kyoto agreement.
CR hated the 4Runner...one of the best cars I ever owned.
¿hecho en mexico?
Some of their domestic Japanese production must be finding its way into the world market.
‘Consumer Reports said it no longer recommends V6 versions of Toyota’s Camry or V8 versions of its Tundra pick-up because of poor reliability. ‘
We get Consumer Reports magazine, and use it when making purchases.
That said, they said the same thing about the Hummer H2 (poor reliability). I own a H2, and thats simply not the case at all. Its the most reliable vehicle I’ve ever owned.
I suspect junk science about global warming is creeping into these evaluations. H2 has a big V8, just like the Tundra.
‘CR hated the 4Runner...one of the best cars I ever owned.’
Same here with my Hummer 2.
I have a couple of Scions, and have been very pleased with them. They have been bulletproof, thus far.
Interesting. This sort of turns my views upside down on vehicle reliability. Especially the JD Powers survey which shows Buick as more reliable in categories than Toyota or Honda. I’m still very satisfied with my 4 cylinder Camry — and glad I got the 4 cylinder. I tested it a few times and just didn’t think it needed more power so I skipped the 6 cylinder — which is apparently less reliable.
Toyotas were never “rock solid” reliable.. most of that was crap and manipulation. Like Toyota would not issue a formal recall, but do them under different names so it wouldn’t show up in their statitistics when evaluated etc..
Consumer Reports ratings should be taken with a grain of salt, however. Its sort of a car rating system for people who dont like/love cars, but they are usually pretty close.
So has my 2006 GMC Sierra Denali pickup.
Ditto on the 4Runner. But it is amazing that CR gave Toyota a gimme on it cars with NO data. Yeah, that's a dispassionate assesment. /s
There's one (van thingy) around here that has a bumper sticker in the window "Got Toast?" . Maybe it should say, "It's Toast!"..............
That’s the whole point - they can give a vehicle “below average” reliability marks, but because “average” is such a low failure rate, it is debatable whether they have sample sizes anywhere near large enough to determine with any accuracy where a vehicle lies....
And even if it is a solid black rating, horror of all horrors, it couls still be a VERY low problem rate....
Yeah, and they also loved the VW Passat back in 2000 when I purchased one (based largely on CR’s recommendation). I haven’t bothered with CR since.
Tough neighborhood, eh?................
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