Luxury automakers aren't the only ones building good cars, Consumer Reports' 2016 report card shows
Subaru, Mazda and Toyota appear quite high on the annual list of automakers that manufacture the best new cars.
If you polled a group of random, non-car-fanatics about which automakers build the best cars, you're likely to hear a bunch of luxury marques in response. That might carry some truth, but high-end brands aren't the only ones producing quality vehicles, as evidenced in Consumer Reports' 2016 Brand Report Card.
The results are tabulated by compiling overall, road test and predicted reliability scores, then averaging those scores out across each brand. Consumer Reports only included vehicles that it's personally tested, save for VW's maligned diesel products, which aren't available for sale at the moment.
While Audi captured the top spot, with Lexus, Porsche and BMW not far behind, it's the remainder of the results that are interesting. Subaru slid into second place, with Mazda and Buick taking fifth and sixth, respectively. In order, the remaining vehicles in the top 10 are Toyota, Kia and Honda. Of those vehicles, only Toyota and Lexus captured the highest marks for predicted reliability.
Dead last on the list is Fiat, with Jeep, Mitsubishi and Land Rover not faring much better. Four brands have the lowest predicted reliability score -- Cadillac, Land Rover, Jeep and Fiat. Several brands, including Tesla, Jaguar, Smart and Ram, don't appear on the list because they have fewer than two tested vehicles over the past year. The Tesla Model S was the best overall car in 2014 and 2015, an award that CR chose not to bestow this year.
