Toyota, Lexus tops Consumer Reports used car reliability rankings; Tesla third from bottom

Toyota’s ironclad reputation for reliability has been unchallenged for much of its history, driving up consumer confidence and resale values. This remains the same today, whether that’s here in Malaysia or, as Consumer Reports found out, in the US.

A used car reliability study published by the organisation focused on five- to ten-year-old models (2014 to 2019) placed the Japanese brand and its luxury offshoot, Lexus, at the top of its rankings. Both held a considerable lead over Mazda, and all three scored consistently average or above-average reliability ratings over the years. Honda and Acura rounded off the top five.

“Brands like Lexus and Toyota have a history of conservative redesigns, incrementally improving their entire product line, rather than introducing many all-new systems,” says Consumer Reports senior automotive data analyst Steven Elek. “Our data consistently shows over time that cars from those brands are reliable when new and they continue to be reliable as they age.”

It’s a less rosy picture for the bottom three on the list – Tesla in 24th, Dodge in 25th and Chrysler in 26th. We should point out that while Toyota, Lexus and Chrysler occupied the same positions in the new car rankings, Tesla was actually placed 14th out of 30 brands for new cars.

Consumer Reports outlined several reasons for this discrepancy, like the fact that a decade ago, Tesla was only two years into the launch of its first “mainstream” model, the Model S – a brand-new electric sedan with never-before-seen technology. Fast forward to today and the bulk of the company’s sales are currently made up of the Model 3 and Model Y, which have been around for a while and are now updated with lessons learnt from several years of being on sale.

“This difference shows in our data, where multiple owners of 2014-2015 Model S reported requiring replacement of the electric drive motor, battery pack, or infotainment hardware,” said Elek. “It is also possible that these components fail over time, meaning new Teslas have years to go before we know if similar issues occur. We will continue to monitor the data for possible trends.”

On the flip side is MINI, which is placed 12th in this survey (the F56 MINI Hatch had just come out back in 2014) but ranks a solid third for new cars this year, the latter thanks to a matured lineup that has had its teething problems ironed out. However, the company has introduced the new all-electric MINI Cooper and Countryman this year, so it might slip a few places in next year’s rankings.

In the luxury segment you have Mercedes-Benz, which placed 29th out of 30 brands for new cars, with Consumer Reports predicting below or well-below-average reliability due to several redesigned models – including a range of all-new EVs – and the increasing complexity of the Mercedes-Benz User Experience (MBUX) system.

This contrasts with its tenth place in the used car reliability stakes, making it the highest-ranked European brand (according to Consumer Reports anyway; it probably missed that BMW was ranked seventh). The 2017 and 2019 E-Class in particular – both of the W213 generation – were highlighted as having above-average reliability. The overall luxury segment was topped by Buick in sixth.

Consumer Reports said it calculated reliability based on the average number of problems for that model year, which tend to grow over time as the cars age. The firm studied 20 potential trouble areas, from niggles like squeaks and broken trim to major issues such as out-of-warranty powertrain, EV battery and charging problems.

Of course, a US-centric study isn’t going to be representative of used cars in Malaysia, given local conditions and use cases and, most importantly, the fact that we don’t get most US-market brands and models. It is interesting, however, to see that the survey does mirror general buyer sentiment over here, particularly when it comes to Japanese brands being the most reliable.

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