Monday, May 14, 2007

Acura reliability ranks higher than Lexus in 2007

Toyota's vaunted Lexus luxury brand has fallen from first to fifth in Consumer Reports magazine's annual predicted reliability survey. Acura is currently ranked fourth. The top 3 spots are not "luxury" brands. An interesting note is that the top 5 positions are held by either Toyota or Honda. Mercedes-Benz was last among 36 brands. Other luxury brands at the bottom: Land Rover, Hummer and Jaguar.

The magazine's director of automotive testing, blamed one model for Lexus' fall, the midsize GS that was redesigned last year. He said the car had problems in three areas — body integrity, defined as rattles or poorly fitting panels; body hardware, such as locks and trunk mechanisms; and the sound system.

Mercedes, DaimlerChrysler's luxury brand, tumbled four places to the cellar, "a very poor showing for a very expensive car," Champion said. Mercedes' quality is so imperiled that a 9-year-old Lexus LS 400 has potentially fewer problems than a new Mercedes ML. Champion said of Mercedes: "They perform well, have great fit and finish. But they seem to have a lot of problems with the seven-speed automatic transmission in all their products, and power accessories and electrical systems."



How 'Consumer Reports' survey ranks cars
Predicted reliability of brands and where they placed last year
(Bold = gained; italics = lost.)
Maker
'07
'06
Toyota
1
3
Honda
2
2
Scion
3
7
Acura
4
6
Lexus
5
1
Subaru
6
5
Hyundai
7
13
Infiniti
8
28
Mitsubishi
9
4
Mercury
10
8
Mazda
11
9
Audi
12
27
Lincoln
13
30
GMC
14
25
Volvo
15
12
Ford
16
16
Kia
17
14
Buick
18
20
BMW
19
21
Pontiac
20
17
Chevrolet
21
24
Dodge
22
18
Chrysler
23
15
Nissan
24
26
Saab
25
23
Suzuki
26
10
Volkswagen
27
33
Mini
28
11
Porsche
29
36
Saturn
30
29
Cadillac
31
22
Jeep
32
19
Jaguar
33
31
Hummer
34
35
Land Rover
35
34
Mercedes-Benz
36
32
Table Source: Consumer Reports

[Source] USAToday.com - Japanese brands dominate
[Source] USAToday.com - Luxury brands take beating in auto-reliability survey

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is amazing to find that expensive Acura is LESS RELIABLE than cheaper Honda. Maybe Honda do not want their luxury brand to get too uppity?

dalieu said...

I don't think that's the case. Every manufacture wants their brand to be as reliable as possible, luxury brand or not. Plus, if that's your logic, than Toyota doesn't want their luxury brand Lexus to get too "uppity" also? It just doesn't make sense.

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