Best values

Small cars and family cars provide the most bang for the buck

Many people assume that a low purchase price makes a car a good value. But a cheaper car can actually end up costing more in the long run. Or down the road you could end up regretting its disappointing performance or reliability. And that's no bargain.

If you're in the market for a midsized SUV, for example, you might initially assume that the V6 Dodge Journey, about $37,000, is a better value than a similar Toyota Highlander, which costs about $1,600 more. But a closer look shows that the Highlander is one of our top-rated SUVs, has had excellent reliability, and gets relatively good fuel economy of 18 mpg overall.

On the other hand, the Journey has had below-average reliability, gets only 16 mpg overall, and didn't score high enough in our road tests to be recommended. Moreover, despite its higher sticker price our analysis shows that the Highlander will cost you about $5,000 less to own over the first five years than the Journey, once you factor in depreciation, insurance, financing, fuel costs, and other operating expenses. That makes the Highlander not only a much better overall value than the Journey but also the best value of any midsized SUV we've tested.

Another example is the Honda Fit. It costs almost $1,300 more than the tiny Smart ForTwo, and both have the same low five-year owner cost of 44 cents per mile. But the versatile, fun-to-drive Fit scored among the top subcompact hatchbacks we've tested and has had outstanding reliability. The Smart, on the other hand, has poor performance, got one of the lowest road-test scores of any car in our tests, and has had only average reliability. The Fit gives you more bang for the buck than the Smart, and it earned the highest value score in our analysis: more than twice that of the average vehicle.

Real value is what you get for your money. And to find out which models deliver the most, we analyzed more than 200 vehicles that we've recently tested, focusing on their overall road-test scores, predicted-reliability scores, and five-year owner-cost estimates. (See "What is value?") In short, the better a car performs in our road tests and reliability ratings, and the less it costs to own over time, the better its value.

Overwhelmingly, the best values come from Japanese automakers, including most of the top models in the categories. (See Best & worst values.) Of the 48 best values in our lists, 34 are from Japanese brands. Six models come from European brands (mostly Volkswagen), five come from American ones (mostly Ford), and three are from South Korean automakers.