A high price doesn't mean it's reliable
This article appeared in Paying more for a new car doesn't guarantee better reliability. As a group, inexpensive small cars and midsized family sedans are the most reliable. That's one of the findings of our 2009 Annual Auto Survey, based on our subscribers' experiences with 1.4 million vehicles.
Small cars stand out. Twenty of 37 small cars have above-average predicted-reliability scores. Family cars fare nearly as well, with 21 out of 41 scoring above average.
Other interesting findings include the following:
- A wide gulf separates the best from the worst. The least reliable vehicle, the Volkswagen Touareg, is 27 times more likely to have a problem than the most reliable car, the Honda Insight.
- Ford is tops among the domestic automakers. The Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan once again beat the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry. The upscale Lincoln MKZ beat its rivals, the Acura TL and Lexus ES.
- Even good brands falter. Among the least reliable in their respective classes are the all-wheel-drive Lexus GS, the Nissan Versa sedan, and the Subaru Impreza WRX.
- Five of the eight most reliable family cars are hybrids.
But reliability isn't everything. Some very reliable models do not perform well enough in our road tests for us to recommend them. One example is the Toyota Yaris: Its ironclad reliability doesn't make up for its below-average performance. The same applies to the Honda Insight and the Volvo S40, one of the most reliable nonhybrid family cars.
