Most cars today are much more reliable than they were 20 years ago. Brands like Kia or Hyundai are now considered to be pretty reliable and less expensive than a Toyota or Honda. Consumer reports is your friend on car buying.
Most Reliable Vehicle Company?
- Thread starter mb7299
- Start date
Personal anecdotes only go so far.
Talk to a mechanic you trust (preferably one that works on multiple makes and models).
If it is my money though, I try to seek unbiased information. I highly recommend Consumer Reports which has reliability ratings (along with other vehicle info) which collects information from mechanics, car users, and does their own test without accepting any advertising money.
This is what they report on 2018 vehicle reliability rankings.
Talk to a mechanic you trust (preferably one that works on multiple makes and models).
If it is my money though, I try to seek unbiased information. I highly recommend Consumer Reports which has reliability ratings (along with other vehicle info) which collects information from mechanics, car users, and does their own test without accepting any advertising money.
This is what they report on 2018 vehicle reliability rankings.
Agreed! What I learned today is that cars are like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get.
Brands jump around a lot on consumer reports with the exception of Lexus and Toyota almost always near the top. Personal anecdotes in this forum seem to confirm. Honda being 15 this year is interesting, because they're usually just under Toyota on these rankings. I wonder what Honda changed with their vehicles to take a dive.
Mazda/Subaru guy sold me on my Mazda3 by showing me multiple years of this report with Mazda just under Honda and Toyota. So far so good, but at 40,000 its still early.
Also wanted to say I love all the replies summed up with this, "my car had this big issue that shouldn't have ever happened and this issue that shouldn't have ever happened, but other than that its been great in the first <100,000 miles I've owned it." 
I don't think Consumer Reports follows the cars long enough. I don't think ou know much about "reliability" until you get over 150K. I've always driven Fords and GMs and they've been pretty good. I think "domestic" cars have peaked out on reliability with global supply chains and over-engineered vehicles. My mechanic is a Ford guy, but is thinking his next vehicle may be a Toyota.
Pontiac, srsly? J/K... I grew up with a Pontiac 6000 V6 and beat the crap out of it.
Surprised by the low rating for Honda, but other than that it looks pretty much like I would expect. Mazda is one that I would question on being that reliable though. I have only owned one, and it was okay, but I have seen an alarming number of Mazda sedans on sale on Craigslist because the engine failed at less thank 120K miles. The probably just have a bad motor in the mix somewhere, and maybe those vehicles are old enough that they are not considered in this information.
I would be interested in there parameters for this too. How many years does it cover? Do the flaws get rated for severity? IE, is a glove box that doesn't close tight as damaging that high rate of an engine or transmission failure? I agree with the global supply chains and over-engineered vehicles have hurt domestic vehicles, and probably all vehicles.
Not Honda anymore. Wife had to get a new transmission with 3,000 miles on her new Honda.
I think there's a lot of inconsistency in some for the parts year to year. Look what happened with all of those defective airbags that manufacturers bought to install in their cars.
Sometimes you get a recall that's a pretty simple replacement part but you have to wait because they don't have the improved part to fix it yet.
My sister had a Honda Insight. Supposed to be a competitor to the Toyota Pious. She hated it and the door gasket that seals when you close it to keep out the wind and rain failed at like 22,000 miles.
I think Nissan and Mazda have surpassed Honda somehow. The Mazda CX-5 is a notch above the Rogue or the RAV4.
Yes. C for Crossover. Been screwing up a lot on these posts lately. Got to think it all through before posting. Thanks
They rate any problem the same, so yes glove boxes not closing tight rates the same as engine/transmission issues. There have been some years were the multitudes of GM vehicle clones were all rated differently just based off the the infotainment interface/screen each brand had.
Good chart. I think Kia is a really good play especially for SUVs. You can get a “size up” Kia for the same price as a next size down Toyota or Honda.
Most are very good. My personal bad experiences are with Toyota and Chrysler although the 04 Town and country made it to about 155K with only annoying accessory issues, the 09 matrix used about a quart every thousand miles unless you used synthetics then it was about every 500 miles. It had about 100k when i got rid of it. Have a Hyundai with no issues at 100k and have never had an issue with GM Pick ups.
The chart I included is just for reliability which is what the OP was asking. However, the chart is just for 2018 models, but they collect a lot of information on used cars too.
They collect used car surveys for most makes and models for up to 10 years. That is a lot of data and a significant sample size. They are pretty explicit in their methods and rely on road tests and owner satisfaction surveys of between 200-400 samples each model year.
Consumer Reports also looks at pretty much all other aspects a buyer would interested in (safety, driver satisfaction, road performance, etc.). If there was a poorly designed glove box, uncomfortable seats, clumsy temperature controls, etc. it usually gets noted too.
p.s. I do not receive any kickbacks for recommending Consumer Reports ; )
