ATLANTA — With car prices at or near record levels and interest rates still high, purchasing any new or used car is a high-stakes financial decision.
Consumer Reports put together report cards for all the cars it tests to help you make the right choice that will last you for years down the road. The nonprofit consumer organization has engineers and automotive experts who put every car it buys through more than 50 tests.
Everything from acceleration, braking, and other high-speed maneuvers are tested on a track. That helps compile a list of which cars are the safest for drivers when they are looking to buy a new car. Consumer Reports compared more than 250 models of vehicles for their collective road performance, comfort, reliability, owner satisfaction, and safety.
"We live with these vehicles every single day. We take them home, we drive them on public roads, we put our families in them, we go to the grocery store, and we use all of this data, combined with our survey information, to figure out who makes the best cars," said Alex Knizek with Consumer Reports.
The top five car brands remain unchanged from last year in terms of which brands are included, but there is one major shift. Subaru now claims the top spot as the most reliable car brand, according to Consumer Reports.
"When they design or redesign a new model, they tend to iterate on last year's models," Knizek said. "And this approach tends to lend itself towards good reliability because they work out the kinks, so to speak, over time. On top of that, their vehicles perform well in our testing."
Most reliable car brands
- Subaru
- BMW
- Lexus
- Porsche
- Honda
"Part of buying, testing and living with these vehicles is not only experiencing what is good about the best scoring vehicles but also the things that are maybe annoying or not so good," Knizek said.
Least reliable car brands
- Jeep
- Rivian
- Land Rover
- GMC
- Dodge
"Even top-scoring brands can have vehicles that don't score so well," Knizek explained. "So it's really important that you do your research and you check the ratings for the vehicles that you're specifically interested in."
Consumer Reports also ranks brands that make the best-used cars -- some of those include Lexus, Toyota and Mazda.