Japanese vehicles dominate Consumer Reports' rankings

DETROIT -- Consumer Reports' latest auto reliability and survey rankings find overall domination by Japanese automakers, gains from the Detroit Three, and stumbles from Europe.

The findings, released yesterday and featured in the magazine's April issue, are based on more than 250 tested vehicles and data collected from 1.3 million subscribers' vehicles.

For the second time in 10 years, all the magazine's top-10 picks are Japanese nameplates. This year's list includes five new models: the Toyota RAV4, Infiniti G35, Toyota Sienna, Mazda MX-5 Miata, and the Honda Fit.

The list features vehicles that performed well in Consumer Reports' tests, have at least average predicted reliability, and adequate performance in government and insurance industry crash protection tests.

The Toyota Prius ranked as the most satisfying vehicle overall for the fourth straight year based on the percentage of respondents who said they would buy the same model again, according to the magazine's annual car owner satisfaction survey.

The Chevrolet Corvette again came in second.

Seven domestic models made the top cut, compared with four last year. Japanese models fell from 31 to 26, and European models increased from nine to 11.

The magazine found that Volkswagen leads in overall test performance, followed by Honda, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Mazda, and Nissan. But Honda, Subaru, and Toyota get the highest marks when it comes to reliability.

Vehicles are given a single score that reflects their performance in Consumer Reports' own testing.

In a new report card, Mercedes-Benz received the fourth-highest test score with 77 out of a possible 100, but none of the German automaker's vehicles received a recommendation from Consumer Reports due to concerns about reliability.

By contrast, Honda's test score was 78, but the magazine recommends all the automaker's vehicles it tested.

Recommendations of the tested vehicles are based on performance, reliability in surveys, and crash-test results.

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SOURCE: Associated Press