Big News for the Big Three

Consumer Reports says American-built vehicles are, on average, more reliable than European cars. (The Japanese are still way ahead, of course.)

In fact, [the magazine's auto testing chief, David] Champion says for the first time in more than 20 years, cars from Ford, Chrysler and General Motors are more dependable than those built by Audi, Volvo, Mercedes and BMW.

A Consumer Reports' survey of 675,000 car owners shows new American models have fewer problems and spend less time in repair shops than their higher-priced European competitors.

The modest Ford Focus, for example, has only half as many maintenance breakdowns as the BMW 7 Series: a top of the line luxury car which costs four times as much.

Of the $82,000 BMW 7 Series, Champion calls it, "one of our worst picks."

"It didn't test well and reliability has been atrocious," says Champion.

The $19,000 Focus, on the other hand, ranks atop Consumer Reports' charts.

I like my 2000 Focus a lot, but it's been plagued by niggling quality problems since I bought it. If Ford had gotten it right when it first came out, it would probably have overtaken the Civic and Corolla by now. (As for BMW, Car and Driver, a magazine frequently accused of being on the company's payroll, has been decidedly unenthusiastic about the 7-series, mainly because of the needlessly complex "i-drive" controls. They didn't like the X3 much, either. I think something is very, very wrong in Munich.)

Here are the entire brand rankings, in PDF format. New Chryslers and Fords are average, Jeeps, Dodges and Pontiacs slightly better, and Buicks and Saturns right up there with Acura, Mazda and Nissan. (Lincoln, Cadillac and Hummer have a way to go, though.)

The other big shocker, to which no one seems to be paying attention: Hyundai is tied with Nissan near the top of the charts, and Kia - Kia! - is also better than average. It's great to see the Big Three beating the Europeans, but how comforting can it be to see the Koreans improving at such an astonishing pace?

Posted by damian at March 9, 2004 01:15 PM