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Guide to Consumer Reports’ Ratings

Last updated: October 2012

Here's a quick-reference guide to all of Consumer Reports' Ratings, from testing and safety scores to reliability and owner-satisfaction information. These ratings lists let you see how a model compares with its competitors in various attributes, so that you can more easily choose the right vehicle for you.

Recommended vehicles

These are vehicles that meet Consumer Reports' stringent testing, reliability, and safety standards. To earn our recommendation, noted with Recommended red check mark vehicles must perform well in our testing, have average or better reliability; and, if crash tested, provide an adequate overall safety Rating. This Rating is a composite of accident-avoidance from our testing, and crash protection based on crash tests administered by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). In addition, pickups and SUVs must not have tipped up in the government's rollover test.

Vehicles are listed by category, so that you can easily see how they compare with competitive models.

Model overviews

Our guide to new-car Ratings and reviews help you interpret the information in our exclusive new-car profiles/model overviews.

Consumer Reports' predicted reliability ratings indicate how the vehicles that are currently on sale are likely to hold up.

Best and worst used cars

This includes all of the models that showed either above-average or below-average reliability in our latest subscriber survey.

Reliability histories

These are detailed reliability ratings that show the individual strengths and weaknesses of 2003 through 2012 models. Separate ratings are provided for each model in 17 trouble areas, as well as an overall reliability, the Used Car Verdict.

Owner satisfaction

These lists indicate how current owners feel about their vehicles, based on our latest subscriber survey. The Ratings show percentage of owners who said they would definitely buy the vehicle again.

   

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