If Consumer Reports is right, Volkswagen is well on its way to attaining its dream of outselling Toyota by 2015. In the magazine's June 2008 issue, CR threw a handful of hatchbacks into the ring and the VW Rabbit hopped out the winner. The magazine cited the Rabbit's "very well finished" interior for its class, agility, braking and transmission as reasons to choose it over a growing field of small hatchbacks. CR also expects the Rabbit to have an "above average" reliability record.
The biggest negative the staff found in the VW was "mediocre" fuel economy for a car its size, though many SUV drivers looking to downsize will love seeing its 24 mpg figure. Staffers also complained about the large C-pillars blocking their view and engine lag after stops.
Consumer Reports has routinely praised the Mazda3 as one of its favorite hatches, but in overall scoring, the car now comes in third, slightly behind the Toyota Prius Touring. Rounding out the top five are the Subaru Impreza Outback Sport and the newly redesigned Toyota Matrix/Pontiac Vibe twins. At the bottom of the list are the Dodge Caliber and the Chevrolet HHR.
Any of you who consider hating on Consumer Reports a personal hobby, get ready to indulge yourself. The consumer advocate mag has just released its list of American Top Picks for 2008, and it ain't pretty. The criteria to be named a Top Pick in general by CR is steep, and the American auto industry failed to produce a single candidate for five out of ten categories, including Small sedan, Small SUV, Minivan, Fun to drive and Green car. To be named a Top Pick, a vehicle has to score well in tests performed by CR, be trouble-free to own and relatively safe. That's not all. A vehicle must also have Electronic Stability Control available, decent crash test results and have been around long enough that there's reliability data to back up its durability. That last one's the knock-out blow for many viable new vehicles.
The Chevy Malibu, for instance, is too new to have an archive of reliability data. Not eligible. The Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan don't offer ESC, so they're not eligible. The Cadillac CTS is too new and the Lincoln MKZ lacks ESC, both not eligible. The list of ineligibility goes on, and what remains is five empty categories and a few strange Top Picks. The Buick Lucerne CXS as Top Pick for an Upscale sedan? It is when the Cadillac CTS and Lincoln MKZ aren't considered. The slow-selling Ford Taurus takes the Family sedan category? Yup, when the Chevy Malibu's not around to fight.
While the idea of an American Top Picks list may sound helpful for super patriots who insist on buying American, the domestic automakers are smack dab in the middle of replacing their disappointing products from yesteryear with new ones that should be on this list. We'll just have to wait a few years for proof that they're reliable before this list becomes useful.
Check out the full list of American Top Picks after the jump, and click the source to read more about the reasoning behind each choice.
Koreans come on strong, a domestic makes it and Toyota nabs four
Consumer Reports will soon release its highly anticipated Annual Auto Issue and we've got the scoop on which cars will be honored as Top Picks within its pages. This year there were some surprises among the 10 categories, including Hyundai, which broke out with two Top Picks: the Elantra SE for Small Sedan and Sante Fe for Midsized SUV. Even a domestic vehicle managed to make it on the list (the first time in two years), with the Chevy Silverado 1500 Crew Cab earning a Top Pick in the Pickup Truck category. The rest of the honored vehicles all hail from Japan, including four Toyota models, one Mazda, one Infiniti and one Honda.
The fact that Hyundai earned two Top Picks and a domestic received one at all is a testament to our long held suspicion that Japanese automakers aren't the only ones who know how to build a good vehicle. Other automakers, particularly our own domestic ones, just forgot for a while. But they're remembering, and quickly. Many new Ford and GM models are performing extremely well in CR's battery of tests, as well as ranking higher and higher in its readership surveys. CR is still withholding a Recommended rating for some of them based on past models that weren't fit for road use, but that won't last forever.
Check out the full list of Top Picks after the jump within the Consumer Reports official press release.
Click on the image above to view in high resolution
With the new CTS, Cadillac set itself some mighty lofty goals, going head-to-head with some of Europe's best sports sedans. But if you listen closely, you can faintly hear the sound of champagne corks popping in Detroit as Consumer Reports gave the CTS top honors in the upscale sports sedan segment, beating out the BMW 3-Series and Mercedes C-Class.
Comparing the new CTS with the likes of the BMW 328i and Mercedes-Benz C300, the Cadillac was the only model to receive an "Excellent" overall rating from the discerning publication. The citation will undoubtedly sit nicely in the Cadillac trophy cabinet, right next to the Motor Trend Car of the Year award it took a couple of months ago.
click above to view high-res gallery of the 2008 Chevy Malibu
They're not quite done putting it through the paces, but Consumer Reports for the most part is liking Chevy's new Malibu. They've opened up the car's logbook on the magazine's blog, and here are a few of the positive quotes they shared:
"Wow. Impressive to drive, even in the four-cylinder version." "Best normally-aspirated Ecotec (four-cylinder engine) application out there." "Distinctive dashboard - definitely not a 'me-too' design." This is a heavy hitter that competes head-on with Camry, Accord, and Altima."
Luckily for Chevrolet, the positive comments so far are in the lead, and most of the negatives are for relatively minor things like:
"hard to reach seat levers" "I do not like the interior trim. The dash has a pink tone to it, whereas the other browns are more orange." "I'm disappointed with the low shoulder belt anchor, poorly placed seat heater switch, and lack of a shifter indicator in the dash."
They promise to have a full review of the car in the magazine's March issue, which we're sure Chevy can't wait to read.
So we know many of you will roll your eyes at this and let the charges fly, but the results of Consumer Reports' 2008 Car Brand Perception survey reveal that Toyota and Honda are "best by a wide margin." The rankings, based on responses from 1,720 adults whose households own at least one car, ranked the amount of times a particular brand was mentioned in any one of seven categories (listed in order of importance to consumers): safety, quality, value, performance, environmental friendliness, design, and technical innovation.
Toyota rang up 189 points, with Honda following at 146. The next three vote-getters were domestics: Ford with 112, Chevrolet with 110, and GMC with 102. Mitsubishi (21), Audi (14), and Acura (8) brought up the rear. The only category in which Toyota and Honda didn't make the top five was design/styling. That's not really a surprise, and the tie for the win in that category is: Mercedes and Lexus.
Of note is that the results of this survey don't exactly match the results of other surveys. Volvo, of course, leads the safety category, but Subaru was voted more safe than both Mercedes and BMW, and the latter two didn't even make the top five. Mercedes did make the quality category top five, even though it came third from last in CR's rankings for predicted reliability that measures quality over time. We can't speak to accuracy of CR's polling methodology, but the results seem to give us less information about the brands than they do about conflicting perceptions of the buying public.
click above for more images of the 2008 Nissan Altima
The Nissan Altima narrowly beat out the Honda Accord for the coveted Consumer Reports Top-Ranked, Mid-priced Sedan, which is revealed in the February 2008 issue. The V6 Accord lost to the V6-powered Altima by a scant one-point, followed by the Toyota Camry and Volkswagen Passat.
Consumer Reports tested a number of family sedans for its February issue, ranging from the base four-cylinder models and up to the range-topping V6s. The selected vehicles, which also included the Ford Taurus, Dodge Avenger, Kia Amanti and Subaru Legacy, were broken down into three categories: "Affordable," "Mid-priced" and "Large" family sedans.
The four-cylinder Altima took the top spot in the "Affordable" category, leading by six points over the Accord, with the Kia Optima EX and Passat 2.0T coming in third and fourth, respectively.
Consumer Reports is quick to point out that the Accord, which has won the publications Top Pick for five years, outperformed the majority of the players, but in the end, the Altima proved to be the best value overall.
Another installment of Consumer Reports annual automotive issue is close at hand. The yearly car issue crowns Top Picks in a variety of categories as well as offering up some solid alternative choices. Last year, we had the opportunity to peek behind the curtain at CR's huge auto test facility in Connecticut, and we were psyched to find out there's real car guys behind all those filled-in circles. Here's a sample of what CR's crew is likely up to right now, expending a huge amount of labor on careful research and evaluation. In a couple of months, we'll be able to raise a fuss when CR yet again passes over our favorite car and anoints something far more reliable and better built their favorite. Oh well, there's always next year. click through to see the video
click above image for more pics of the 2008 Toyota Highlander from our review
Consumer Reports seems to have a few more fans ever since the folks there proved that they have no bias for Toyota by knocking the Japanese automaker down a few pegs. One of the measures taken after three Toyota vehicles, including a Lexus, were bumped from CR's recommended list was that no future Toyotas would get the benefit of the doubt and be labeled as "Recommended" based on the automaker's past performance. The first Toyota vehicle to be hit by this mandate is the new 2008 Toyota Highlander, which, despite becoming the highest rated mid-size SUV (it's really a CUV, but whatever) with three rows of seating, did not receive an automatic "Recommended" designation from the magazine. The Highlander received the highest score of 81 in CR's most recent test, while competitors that were tested alongside the Highlander like the Subaru Tribeca and Ford Taurus X scored 70 and 75, respectively, yet managed to earn the "Recommended" label. Like the Highlander, the Buick Enclave scored relatively well (75) but did not get recommended, with CR citing insufficient reliability data to make the call.
Though Toyota does not find itself in CR's good graces at the moment, the magazine has made it clear that if Toyota's reliability rating returns to "excellent", it will resume automatically recommending its models again. We're just curious, but do any CR readers out there know what other brands or automakers (not individual models) are also automatically recommended based on their past performance?
Click here to read a non-subscriber's version of CR's article, and click here to read our own review of the 2008 Toyota Highlander Sport.
Car commercials are notorious for showing us stuff that the vehicles being advertised can't do, all in the interest of looking cool. The Ford Edge cruising along building ledges springs immediately to mind. With the advent of its new minivans, Chrysler released a TV spot for the Town and Country that ends with a depiction of kids playing Jenga at the Swivel 'n Go table while the van shoots down the road. Having played Jenga on an actual fixed surface, we know that the idea of doing so with any level of success in a moving vehicle is ludicrous at best. We weren't alone. Our friends at Consumer Reports thought the same thing, and as luck would have it, they own a new Town & Country, their very own test track, and Jenga. So they tested it. Click the image above to see the video.
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By the Numbers: April 2008
_thumbnail.jpg "Lamborghini Reventon unboxed in Las Vegas")
