CarMD examines vehicle reliability

11/15/2011

When it comes to auto maintenance and car repairs, the fact of the matter is that some brands have a better reputation than others. But are these reputations well-earned, or are they simply myths that are propagated?

Before the recall scandal damaged their image last year, Toyota was considered to be on of the most reliable automakers. That was confirmed by CarMD's annual Vehicle History Report, which was recently released. CarMD provides diagnostics for vehicles, and thus has access to a lot of hard data on reliability issues.

Toyota was found to be the best automaker overall, also taking into account its Lexus brand. The manufacturer was found to have a 0.67 overall score on the index (lower scores are better), although the company did have a higher average repair cost when their cars were brought in to the shop. Twenty-four of Toyota's vehicles made it into the top 100, out of 900 total vehicles looked at in the study.

Buick actually ranked higher than Toyota in terms of overall score, but for determining the automaker rankings, Buick was lumped in with the rest of General Motors. Poor scores from GMC and Cadillac dragged the company down as a whole, placing it fifth out of all automakers.

Hyundai, Honda and Ford occupied spots two through four on the list. Chrysler was highlighted as the worst automaker for reliability, with more than triple Toyota's numbers.