We all love a little Consumer Reports scoop, don’t we? Last year, Subaru surpassed Toyota and Lexus to become the most reliable carmaker. This year, Toyota reclaims its crown. And there’s one damning stat: Four out of the top five most reliable car brands this year are Japanese.
Make that five out of the top six and six out of the top seven! Such is the dominance of Japanese players when it comes to reliability alone. And out of the top 10, you have a total of seven Asian brands.
Consumer Reports' (CR) rankings are based on info gathered from the owners of over 380,000 cars, which includes models from 2000 to 2025, and some models from early 2026. Twenty possible problem areas (including engine, gearbox, EV battery, charging, body hardware, paint and trim, etc.) are taken into account, after which a reliability score is given on a 100-point scale.
Apart from some shuffling around, there aren't any surprises in the top three: Toyota grabs the first spot (with an average reliability rating of 66 out of 100), with Subaru dropping to second (63), and Toyota-owned Lexus (60) coming in third.
Toyota had a few cars that had lower reliability ratings in last year's report (like the Camry, Tacoma, and Tundra), but turned things around by addressing serious problems to improve the overall reliability. All of these models now feature better ratings than last year’s, which undoubtedly helped Toyota's overall reliability ranking.
Hot on the heels of the top three are Honda (59) at fourth and BMW (58) at fifth – the only European brand in the top 10. From there, you have Nissan (57) in sixth, Acura (57) in seventh, Buick (51) in eighth, Tesla (50) in ninth, and Kia (49) in tenth positions. That makes Buick and Tesla the only American brands in the top 10.
Interestingly, Tesla was the most improved carmaker in this year’s report, climbing eight spots from seventeenth to the ninth spot. Most of this good work can be attributed to the Model 3, which has been crowned the most reliable electric car, according to Consumer Reports. The Model Y also helped improve Tesla's rankings, being deemed the most reliable electric SUV and the most reliable electric vehicle overall in this year’s CR survey.
Meanwhile, Mazda saw the biggest drop in CR’s new car reliability ratings, falling eight spots – from sixth last year to fourteenth this year. This dip was largely attributed to the carmaker launching several redesigns for its models.
Previously reliable cars like CX-70 and CX-90 were released with a new engine and transmissions, while also being available as Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV). Owing to PHEV’s dismal track record of poor reliability concerns, the carmaker’s overall ranking took a big hit.
CR’s report suggests that pure hybrids (gas engine + small battery; no plugging in) are much more reliable than pure electric vehicles (EV) and PHEVs. Why? Most automakers have been producing them for so long that the reliability of their hybrid models is frequently on par with their ICE (internal combustion engine) counterparts.
On the lower end of the reliability spectrum, we have four US automakers – GMC (31), Jeep (28), Ram (26), and Rivian (24), meaning Rivian continues its dismal track record as the least reliable carmaker. For reference, these same brands also had the most unreliable vehicles in last year’s report – Jeep (33), GMC (33), Cadillac (27), and Rivian (14) . So only the order at the bottom has changed.
CR does state that it doesn't include any models from brands like Alfa Romeo, Dodge, Fiat, Infiniti, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lucid, Maserati, MINI, Mitsubishi, Polestar, and Porsche. This is because "Consumer Reports either has insufficient data or the manufacturer has too few models for them to rank."
And there you have it. Is it surprising to anyone that Japanese carmakers dominate in reliability? Probably not, particularly when you look at Consumer Reports’ most reliable individual car models, where the data reveals just how far ahead Japanese cars really are: All of the top 10 car models are from Japanese brands!
Source: Consumer Reports
