US car buyers give thumbs-up to imported cars.
The results of the latest Consumer Reports Car Ownership Study have been released and once again the data shows buyers of Japanese cars are the most satisfied.
The US study, which included 28 car brands, found Lexus and Toyota buyers are the happiest car owners with the highest proportion of satisfaction with their new car. Remarkably, Toyota has topped the poll for the last eight years!
In all, six Japanese brands featured in the top ten, along with two German brands – Audi and Porsche.
Local manufacturer Buick claimed sixth place and the top ten was rounded out by Kia, the South Korean brand claiming 10th position.
The annual report is based on data from 1.1 million car buyers, and not surprisingly, complaints about infotainment systems in new cars are on the increase, the study found issues with syncing phones and unresponsive touchscreens were common.
Meantime, glitches with the new CLA and S-Class models pushed Mercedes-Benz down to 24th, while the four least reliable models are all from the Fiat Chrysler stable – Dodge, Ram, Jeep, and Fiat. The Fiat 500L was named the least reliable among 265 models included in the survey.
2014 Consumer Reports Reliability Rankings
- Toyota
- Lexus
- Mazda
- Honda
- Audi
- Buick
- Subaru
- Scion
- Porsche
- Kia
