For the third year in a row, Lexus was the king of all brands on the Consumer Reports’ 2015 Car Brand Report Cards, earning the highest overall score, announced the publication.
Lexus scored a total of 78 points based on a solid road-test performance and reliability across its lineup of vehicles. Japanese and German brands dominated the top five spots this year of the 28 brands evaluated.
To determine the overall scores, the magazine editors created a composite average based on the average road test score and predicted reliability across a brand’s lineup of vehicles.
Moving up from sixth place in 2014, Mazda finished second this year with 75 points, despite almost half of its models being introduced or redesigned over the past three years. Rounding out the top five were Toyota with 74 points, German-made brand Audi with 73 points and Subaru with 73 points.
Buick is the first U.S. automotive brand to crack the top ten list this year, beating out Honda and BMW in the rankings, and finishing just ahead of them at seventh place. Currently, 83 per cent of Buick vehicles are Consumer Reports-recommended.
Acura fell out of the top ten this year, as the magazine editors noted it’s “once-stellar reliability had dropped in recent years,” and “the unimpressive RLX fell short in our tests.” So did Infiniti, which landed at 17 — just above Nissan.
The magazine editors cited poor reliability on several models and low scoring on the Mercedes-Benz new CLA model as the reasons why Mercedes-Benz lost the most points this year, dropping from 10th to 21st place. The lowest scoring brands were Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Fiat.
To be included on the Car Brand Report Cards, a brand must have at least two models with test and reliability data.
Here are the top ten brands:
- Lexus — 78 points
- Mazda — 75 points
- Toyota — 74 points
- Audi — 73 points
- Subaru — 73 points
- Porsche — 70 points
- Buick — 69 points
- Honda — 69 points
- Kia — 68 points
- BMW — 66 points
