Consumer Reports Reliability Report

Blind_Io

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Yeah, I know what we all think about CR and cars, but it does affect sales and the industry:

Infographic at the bottom of the article: https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-satisfaction/who-makes-the-most-reliable-cars/

Mazda, Toyota, and Lexus continue to build vehicles that place the automakers at the top of our annual auto reliability brand rankings year in and year out. This year they're joined in the top 5 by Buick and Honda, brands that saw a significant improvement in their ranking.
Buick’s 14-position jump, the largest gain this year compared with last year, comes in large part because of not many problems in its small product lineup. Honda’s gain comes from steady improvements and some outstanding models in its lineup, which offset the ongoing reliability problems of its Odyssey minivan and Passport SUV.
Manufacturers ranking in the bottom-third saw big improvement this year.

Chevrolet and GMC moved up partly because of the above-average reliability of the Bolt EV and the 2500 heavy-duty pickup trucks.
BMW, Volvo, and Jeep also rose a significant number of spots in our rankings thanks to reliability improvements in some of their newer or redesigned models. The BMW 3 Series and X5, and Volvo S60/V60 and XC40 performed well. Jeep’s new Gladiator was very reliable in its first year, and the Wrangler’s reliability improved.
Many of the midpack manufacturers with average brand reliability didn’t experience big jumps. Subaru can’t get the reliability of its Ascent SUV on track, while the rest of its lineup is average or better. Audi was hurt by the redesigned Q3 SUV, along with the Q8 and E-Tron EV, all of which have below- or well-below-average reliability. The only reason the brand’s ranking didn’t change was that the A6 sedan improved to average this year joining the Q5, and the older, very reliable A4 and A5 helped raise the brand’s score.

A few manufacturers saw large drops. Kia introduced a new continuously variable transmission in two of its models, the Forte and Soul, that turned out to have significant problems.

Ford and Lincoln—midpack last year—dropped significantly because their new SUVs debuted with major problems. The Ford Explorer has one of the lowest reliability verdicts in this year's surveys, and the redesigned Escape isn't much better. Lincoln’s versions of these SUVs, the Aviator and Corsair, are plagued with similar problems.

Consumer Reports’ brand-level rankings are based on the average predicted reliability score for vehicles in the brand’s model lineup.

Our predicted reliability score is calculated on a 0-to-100-point scale, with the average rating falling between 41 and 60 points. For a brand to be ranked, we must have sufficient survey data for two or more models.

Here we present the rankings of brands as a whole based on their average reliability scores for their models that CR has data for. We list whether the brand’s rank went up or down since our last surveys, and how many models are included in that calculation.

Detailed reliability, including ratings for 17 potential trouble spots, is available to CR members on each car's model page.
 
The Explorer launch was a disaster which is well documented.

We bought our ST at the beginning of September and have had a few issues that more or less everyone has. The backup camera was replaced which also affected the F150s and is now covered under a recall, they also started removing stuff from the BOM shortly after launch which people picked up on. The items included a tow hook, rear air deflector that sits between the mufflers and drivers side strut cover. Our dealer ordered all three and were installed last week.

The big issue has been the electronics and transmission, so far we have been lucky on both however the transmission can crap the bed from 500 miles and some have popped around 20k miles, they are blaming it on the trans cooler line. The electronics seem to be typical new car gremlins, some could have been caught had they not rushed the thing out the door and done their standard program.

Ours has been in the shop for a week now while they are trying to identify a front end rattle that is easily heard while driving slowly through a parking lot. This issue was identified over a year ago with no solution found as of yet. To our techs credit he has spent all week trying to track it down he even disconnected the sway bar to see if the sound went away, the sound reminds me of worn out sway bar links.

All said and done it is a great performer for a three row SUV, sure its not an SRT or a Track Hawk and I wasn't looking for one either, I already have a fuel hungry V8 in the garage no need for another one.

Ford left a lot of potential on the table for the 3.0 TT V6, a standalone 93 octane tune nets 100 HP and an E50 tune gets you around 140 HP. Ford performance is rumored to be releasing a tune at some point we will see how conservative they are with theirs.
 
The Explorer launch was a disaster which is well documented.

We bought our ST at the beginning of September and have had a few issues that more or less everyone has. The backup camera was replaced which also affected the F150s and is now covered under a recall, they also started removing stuff from the BOM shortly after launch which people picked up on. The items included a tow hook, rear air deflector that sits between the mufflers and drivers side strut cover. Our dealer ordered all three and were installed last week.

The big issue has been the electronics and transmission, so far we have been lucky on both however the transmission can crap the bed from 500 miles and some have popped around 20k miles, they are blaming it on the trans cooler line. The electronics seem to be typical new car gremlins, some could have been caught had they not rushed the thing out the door and done their standard program.

Ours has been in the shop for a week now while they are trying to identify a front end rattle that is easily heard while driving slowly through a parking lot. This issue was identified over a year ago with no solution found as of yet. To our techs credit he has spent all week trying to track it down he even disconnected the sway bar to see if the sound went away, the sound reminds me of worn out sway bar links.

All said and done it is a great performer for a three row SUV, sure its not an SRT or a Track Hawk and I wasn't looking for one either, I already have a fuel hungry V8 in the garage no need for another one.

Ford left a lot of potential on the table for the 3.0 TT V6, a standalone 93 octane tune nets 100 HP and an E50 tune gets you around 140 HP. Ford performance is rumored to be releasing a tune at some point we will see how conservative they are with theirs.

How have you liked the performance of the transmission?
 
Depends on the drive mode, in sport it shifts extremely hard to the point they released a tsb saying if people are complaining put the platinum transmission tune on the ST. Other than that it has been fine, if you work at it you can confuse it but the shifts are fast and smooth outside of sport mode.

One thing people have really liked about the aftermarket tunes is how much it wakes up the transmission. The downside is the aftermarket knows the weaknesses and basically holds the tq curve flat from around 2500 so you won't kill it.
 
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