Toyota Tops, Ford Bottoms Out in Latest Consumer Reports Reliability Survey

Ford has dropped to the near-bottom of the latest Consumer Reports reliability survey, while Toyota’s Scion division takes the top spot.

Out of the 28 brands listed, Ford takes the 27th spot, while its Lincoln division comes in at 26. MyFord Touch, along with MyLincoln Touch have been cited as being the major setbacks faced by Ford, along with the brand’s new dual-clutch PowerShift transmission that has been fitted into many of Ford’s small cars. Along with these issues, the V8 powered Mustang has dropped below the average reliability level, and the EcoBoost lineup of engines reliability is also not recommended.

On the other end of the spectrum, the top five spots were claimed by Japanese automakers, with the top three all coming from Toyota. Scion took top honors, followed by Toyota, then Lexus, and rounded out by Mazda in fourth and Subaru in fifth. Out of 27 vehicles in Toyota’s lineup, 16 earned the highest rating possible in the survey.

Audi is creeping up the ranks, placing in at eighth, representing the top German automaker on the list, even beating some some Asian companies such as Kia and Nissan.

General Motor’s Cadillac division is the highest ranked domestic automaker on the list, finding itself in the eleventh spot, with GMC coming in at twelfth and Chevy at fifteenth, all moving up from last year. GM was the only domestic automaker to gain any position, as Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge, along with Ford, all moved down the reliability list.

Compared to five years ago, Consumer Reports auto test director Jake Fisher says that the problems in our vehicles are mostly electronic based, where as they used to be engine, transmission or vehicle hardware issues.

The data used in this reliability study is collected from Consumer Reports subscribers, and asks them to list any serious problems they’ve had with their vehicles in the prior 12 months. Over 800,000 responses came in that covered 1.2 million vehicles from the 2010 to 2012 model years.