Best And Worst Used Cars Buying a used car is often the best choice for consumers. If well-maintained, it can be a good value and later models have many of the newer safety features as well. Consumer Reports has listed the cars with the best and worst reliability history in the 10 years (1999-2008) covered by their Annual Auto Survey.
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is it just me, or is the link borked?
The link is borked :(
Thans, Blackdog. The original link is borked.
But I can't find the survey when I go to the main blog URL.
@Louis Ambrose: They (consumerist) did disclose when they did the purchase that all the ads would be only for Consumer Reports, since they (consumer reports) don't sell ads.
really, no 404 page consumer's report?
There's some silliness list... I don't think people buying a used Lexus SC are worried about whether they got the best used-car deal or not, and an S2000 isn't a practical car in the first place. It's hard to argue with the junk on the "run away!" list, though, except for the fact that depreciation might let you get one of those cheaply enough to be worth having to fix it. My stepfather has a Rendezvous that he can't give away.
No surprise the best list is full of foreign cars and the worst are all domestic.
The link doesn't work, but I don't need to click on it since it's Consumer Reports. Lemme guess: 1. Honda 2. Toyota 3. Honda 4. Toyota 5. Honda 6. Toyota 7. Toyota 8. Toyota 9. Honda 10. Toyota
Hey, where's the Crown Vic/Grand Marquis?
Those things last well over 300,000 miles and are police and taxi cab service mules. Probably the most dependable (if not fuel efficient) car in the world.
@Kitteridge: I think that's content for members only.
If you click on the "most and least reliable used cars" link there's a box on the left hand side with the heading "In this report". In that box there's another link that says "most and least reliable used cars" but that goes to a members only page.
Maybe that's because the issue the report is in is for April.
@SexCpotatoes: To get that kind of life out of them you have to commit to putting a new transmission in every 100,000 miles, though.
@GearheadGeek: What's interesting about the SC is luxury cars almost always do badly in CR's reliability rankings. CR considers broken gadgets to be as much of a reliability problem as a broken engine, and luxury cars have lots of gadgets.
I also don't think I'd want a used S2000, no matter how reliable it is. You just know a car like that has had the piss beaten out of it by some boy racer.
@David Brodbeck: "CR considers broken gadgets to be as much of a reliability problem as a broken engine..."
That's not even remotely true.
Are all problems considered equally serious?Do you guys ever get tired of repeating stuff you hear from each other, without bothering to find out if it's true?
Problems with the engine-major, cooling system, transmission-major, and driveline are more likely to take a car out of service and to be more expensive to repair than the other problem areas. Consequently, we weigh these areas more heavily in our calculations of Used Car Verdicts and Predicted Reliability. Problems in any area can be an expense and a bother, though, so we report them all in the Reliability History charts.
Sad that this article is accompanied by Consumer Reports house ads. Someone should buy your inventory.