2011 Porsche Boxster Spyder

2011 Porsche Boxster Spyder

Influential buyer guide Consumer Reports has come out with its annual new car reliability ratings and surprisingly it’s the mainstream brands that dominate and not the luxury makes. Honda and Toyota still dominate in reliability for the latest crop of 2011 models, and General Motors has also  made great strides, but many of the established European luxury makes have fallen below the overall industry average.

The Porsche Boxster still managed to come in as the most reliable model but at the other end of the spectrum we have the Audi A6 and Jaguar XF rated as the least reliable models.

Among the luxury brands, Lexus rated best with only the all-wheel drive GS sedan and the new IS 250 Convertible ranking below average. Acura also scored well with the TL, RL and RDX all topping their respective segments.

Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, on the other hand, faired much worse. Five out of 11 BMW models rated below average, with most suffering from issues associated with their turbocharged engines. Six of Mercedes-Benz's 13 models rated below average,  and nearly three-quarters of the Audi models sampled did so as well.

The results are based on the responses of Consumer Reports’ own reader base, with the reliability data of 1.3 million vehicles ranging from the 2001 through to the 2010 model years being used to predict the reliability of the new 2011 models. 

[Consumer Reports]