Does Toyota own CR? or is it other way around.

I'm pretty happy that I don't listen to consumer reports.

Oh yes, and also I think that foreign cars are not worth the hype.

Why are there no american brands? I guess American car companies should start making more reliable, fuel, efficient cars instead of big ass trucks and fast but fuel-eating vehicles

Wish my Scion xD would make some list. Costs me less than $20 to fill it up and I've only spent about $80 on maintenance in the first year, and only because I didn't want to get my oil changed at the dealer.

@Stephen Brooks: I only see one Toyota on that list. The last list also had Honda on top.

@Stephen Brooks:

You know, if you don't use logic, you have no argument.

Fun fact: CR is a privately-owned company that refuses advertising conflict-of-interest. It also own The Consumerist.

You think foreign cars are not worth the hype. But an unbiased third party has evidence to the contrary, and your response is to belittle them with nothing to back up your claim? Please.

I've owned US(Saturn, Chevy) and Foreign cars (Toyota, Nissan). The foreign ones required less service and lasted longer.

I love my 2000 Corolla. Most reliable car I've ever had and the cheapest to maintain. I've never had anything break yet.

@Kevin Do:

Amen. I'd love to buy American, but I need to be sure I'll make it to work every morning.

@Stephen Brooks: I'm sure your anecdotal experience beats their years of research, testing, and consumer surveys, so please do go on.

@Kevin Do: Everyone knows only effete commies drive small, reliable, fuel-efficient cars. REAL Americans drive stupid-wasteful cars. DUH.

I have a 2007 Civic Hybrid and I'm quite happy with it. I get about 40 mpg in LA traffic (it would be better if traffic didn't suck so badly here) and I've only had to get regular maintenance, though that should be the case with any car in its first two years. My previous car was a 2001 Jetta so I know all about unreliable cars.

When I bought the Civic I got a $2200 tax rebate which made the payback time about 3 years compared to the non-hybrid Civic. In addition to the car price, maintenance is more expensive because of the special hybrid voodoo that they do (I really don't know what the difference is other than 0W20 oil but the Honda dealer really sticks it to me.) So in the end the cost savings may be a wash.

My only beef is that the climate control is based on a thermostat. I just want to have cold air or hot air coming out and it's a pain to contort the controls into doing that when you're trying to concentrate on driving.

@Stephen Brooks: What's a foreign car anymore? When you have Hondas made in Ohio, Toyotas in Texas, BMWs in South Carolina, Volkswagens in Tennessee and Mazdas in Michigan are these cars truly foreign? What about your Mexican made Ford Focus? Or Canadian built Chrysler? Or German built Saturn?

Cars are a global product. Quality has more to do with the standards and process used to construct them than their country of origin.

Yay, Hyundai! I keep plugging my car brand here. It's really that awesome. (I am a former owner of VW, Toyota, Subaru, and Mitsubishi vehicles.)

Honda Fit Sport with manual transmission. Room, mileage, adaptible interior. I get 41mpg highway and 36mpg city, and 400+ miles to the tank.

The only thing it really needs is to have an inverter built in for low wattage use, like recharging batteries for laptops, cell phones or cameras.

My Civic EX rocks, 4 years and 80,000 miles later no problems.

@ElizabethD:

My wife had a Hyundai Accent that was awesome. 120,000 miles and not a single repair that wasn't standard maintinence.

@Stephen Brooks:

can we just revoke facebook commenting privileges from now on?

@ElizabethD:

While our '04 elantra has a butt ugly cheap interior, it is an awesome car, I just may buy another when my nissan gives up the ghost.

The car is now 5 model years old and yet to have a repair.

Yay for Hyundai. My 2003 Elantra has 108,000-plus miles and I've only had to do routine maintenance on it. Mine was made in South Korea, but they're made in the U.S. now. It was my first foreign-made car after my a '64 Volkswagen bug, 2 Mustangs, 1 Tempo, and 1 Tracer. My husband's 2002 Elantra has a little over 50,000 miles and he's had the same experience. My Tracer blew the engine at 116,000 miles -- a week after the dealer insisted the "check engine" light meant it only needed a $450 tuneup -- and a Ford Tempo that finally died after 12 years and 201,000 miles (and paying a ton for repairs). My next car will definitely be another Elantra -- unless I can afford the Genesis!

@Eyebrows McGee:

Comrade, PLEEEASE!

@HPCommando: I looked at the Fit. I liked the Fit. I wanted to get a Fit, until i test drove one and my back was killing me after 2 minutes in the driver's seat.

@Parapraxis: Agreed. I remember when we had to get published on the site or get special approval to post.

@HPCommando:

I test drove an 09 Fit Sport a couple weeks ago and was impressed with its utility and incredible road visibility. Coming from an ECHO, I wanted something with a little more oomph, but the Fit fills its niche nicely.

@Kevin Do:

It would still take ages for them to get into Consumer Reports' upper echelon. The "predicted reliability" is the killer.

The Fit is in there, based on five-year cost estimates. Unless they surveyed in Japan and Europe, they don't have those. Also the current Elantra isn't five years old. Basically this means either they aren't using the same standards for all cars on that list, or they're letting the company's other cars rub off on these.

This would mean that even if Chevy made the best small car ever, they'd have a hard time convincing Consumer Reports as long as the Impala were still mediocre and the Corvette was still having roof panels fly off on the road. It also means that the Mazda 3 could be dragged down by the RX-8.

You also can't be sure of the reliability of one model, or even a new revision of an old model, based solely on information regarding the company's other models or their earlier models. I don't think anyone saw that Honda transmission problem a couple years ago coming. (And on the manuals, even!) Also, even if you have the same engine, or even the same engine and transmission in the same configuration, changes in the layout of the engine bay and cooling system can result in differences in engine cooling, meaning that head gaskets could blow in one car but not another using the same engine, and you'd never see it coming.

Cars are not Consumer Reports' strength.

@Raekwon:

remember when we had to submit our comments via carrier pigeon six weeks in advance of the chiseling in the stone tablet where we wanted it to appear?

man, those were the days. fucking facebook...

Yay, Hyundai Santa Fe was number 1 for midsized SUV. It was in the list for most reliable too. I've had to do one repair on mine since I bought it used, but I knew about the issue when I bought it and it was pretty cheap to fix anyway. If only my fuel economy was better... sigh.

i bang my head constantly when discussing cars with thick-headed "pro-mericans".

that being said, remember opinions are a lot like..., everyone has one.. if you neglect a car, it shall not treat you well. this is just a starting point for your research.

I'm going to hit up my library tomorrow and check out the review on the Fit Sport. That seemed like an incredible value. I wonder if the bump in price makes it unattractive because you start to get into the Corolla/Civic range and the difference of 30-some HP.

@LouisaDowell: cheers to that!
i've owned the car almost 4 years now, and the most expensive maintenance i've had to pay for was new tires!

@MinervaAutolycus: Yay Elantra!

I have an '05, and I've had to have some electrics repaired, and my steering wheel is technically disintegrating, but everything else is great!

Though, I'll probably die in a side-impact crash, I still <3 it.

@WBrink: There's also the fact that the Civic and Corolla are sedan-only these days, instead of having a nice practical hatch. You'd need to compare to the Matrix (which is essentially a version of Corolla, even if not marketed that way) to get a really comparable slightly-bigger vehicle.

We're one of the 6 people who bought a new car this year. We just got a Mini Cooper S Clubman. This is my wife's dream car... seriously. And I frickin' love this thing! I have a 2007 Mazda CX7 and while I thought I really liked it, compared to driving this Mini in "sport" mode... ho-lee crap! God its fun. It had really nifty gizmos I like too such as bluetooth connectivity to my phone, iPod connection and control via steering wheel, dual sun roofs... passenger side suicide doors... its a hoot. I may sell my Mazda and get one.

Love, love, love my Honda Fit Sport. I don't get quite 41 mph but it's a great little car with tons of room.

Me too! I love my Honda Fit Sport. When I first got it in 2007, I never saw any others on the road. In fact, it was cheaper for me to have one customized and special ordered from Honda than to get a barely used one off the lot. Now, I see them on the road all the time. Great car!

@Stephen Brooks: GOD DUDE, SERIOUSLY. YOU CAN'T EVEN READ. 1 Toyota vs 3 Honda. HOW DO YOU EVEN GET THE WORDS TO COME UP IN THE POSTING WINDOW?

@TechnoDestructo: THANK YOU. People love to tout the accuracy of consumer reports when it comes to cars, but their bias toward brands over actual vehicles shows every time.

My biggest pet peeve is the five year cost estimates, because of both what you said (right now there ARE no American small car models more than 4 years old) along with the fact that it IS fact that when a foreign car does break it is at least twice the cost to repair over a domestic.

I just had to repair a FIT wiper due to ice actually breaking the wiper arm a few weeks back. When I found out exactly how Honda built the thing I was appalled at how poor it was constructed. If it had failed my wife on the road she could have easily crashed. The repair cost me almost 70 dollars for a new wiper arm. This is on a 2007 car. I have NEVER on 4 domestics had a wiper arm fail... Maybe its antidotal but still ice should never shred a aluminum arm.

@TechnoDestructo: Wow, someone with common sense. I trust JD Power for my car info, as they go simply and objectively based on number of problems over a period of time. 3 years for reliability, 90 days for initial quality. I trust a company who pretty much only studies autos over Consumer Reports and their ambiguous "predicted reliability."

Also, in reply to Kevin Do, the Ford Fusion hybrid is the most reliable, fuel efficient car you can buy in that class and it's absolutely killing other hybrids in driving tests.

@Burt Perkins: It must really be dreadful not to quite get to 41 mph. I had never heard the Fit was that slow. ;)

@superberg: I love when people use the "unbiased" argument to discredit JD Power's ratings, which often paint a different picture than CR's, even though JD Power uses objective data to measure initial quality and reliability (problem reports from consumers). Basically what they're doing is finding new ways to discredit any opinions that don't agree with theirs (namely CR always patting them on the back for buying their foreign car), even though there's no valid reason for it.

Can we get someone to post exactly how CR comes up with these ratings on here? I only see news articles says which cars are the best buys or the most reliable, never what they specifically did to come up with those evaluations.

CR always seems to be lacking WRT cars. Leaving the Nissan Versa off the list is a travesty. I just test drove one (to motivate my fiancee that she REALLY wants to save up for a Rogue) and it was not a bad car. But then look at its price point compared to the competition and it is an INCREDIBLE value for the price.

@Paladin_11: which is why American cars companies FAIL.

@Stephen Brooks: It's not hype. American cars are crap, my Honda civic, less shop time at 130 thousand miles than a my friends 3 year old Jeep.

@Kevin Weber: buy the magazine, cheap skate

@Kevin Weber:

JD power has its own problems, mostly to do with how they're funded.

@BiZarRroBALlmeR: why should i buy the magazine when other sources provide this info for free?

@TechnoDestructo: I've never bought the funding arguments. Their reliability/quality ratings are essentially rankings of the number of problems that people experience with their autos (less problems = higher ranking). Consumers report the problems in a survey, JD Power simply adds up the totals.

The one issue I have with them is that the reliability study is only three years out, meaning a lot of major problems might be missed. I am guessing they figured that any longer than three years would be too hard to track?

@Kevin Weber:

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Are you saying CR isn't unbiased? That they aren't objective? They probably pull some of their data from a different pool than JD Power. If you and I each go out onto the street from our respective homes and ask the first 100 people we meet the same question, we're likely to have a different set of results. Of course JD Power and CR don't agree 100%.

Of course, I didn't mention JD Power, nor did anyone ahead of me. Where you inferred this is beyond me.

@Jim Topoleski:

I had a wiper arm break on a 1984 Toyota Corolla once...during the summer. (And finding a replacement in the middle of nowhere was a challenge)

@TechnoDestructo: I couldnt get one from Honda! I had to order it online because none of the 3 Honda dealers near me carried it and all wanted me to wait a couple days and pay 100 bucks for it.