Buick performed the best out of General Motors’ four sub-brands in a recently published Consumer Reports ranking of automotive manufacturers.
The Buick brand dropped two spots from last year in Consumer Reports’ newest ranking of automotive brands, with the American crossover manufacturer ranked eleventh overall. This was the best performance in the ranking out of GM’s four brands, with Cadillac ranked 21st, Chevrolet 24th and GMC 31st. A total of 32 brands were included in this year’s ranking.
| Model | Overall Score | Recommended | Green Choice |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enclave | 62 | - | - |
| Encore | 72 | Yes | - |
| Encore GX | 69 | Yes | - |
| Envision | 84 | Yes | - |
Consumer Reports‘ automotive brand rankings are based on an overall score that it assigns. This score is based on the publication’s own road test scores for a brand’s various vehicles, along with predicted reliability as well as owner satisfaction based on responses from past owner surveys. A vehicle’s safety score from institutions like the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety was also taken into account when assigning brand scores, while a separate “Green” score was applied to brands based on the number of eco-friendly vehicles it offers.
Buick was found to have above-average predicted reliability in this study, along with average owner satisfaction and a strong average road test score of 76. Of the four Buick vehicles that Consumer Reports has sampled, it recommended three to its readers: the subcompact Buick Encore and Encore GX, along with the compact Buick Envision. The only Buick vehicle that it does not recommend to readers is the mid-size Enclave.
Buick does not have any eco-friendly vehicle choices at the moment, which negatively impacted its overall score, although this will change in the coming years as GM is set to introduce two battery-electric Buick crossover models by mid-decade.
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Comments
We all have our opinions about CR, and I surely do as well. And it’s not very favorable. But let’s put that aside for a moment and look at this from farther back.
For well over 30 years, Buick has been doing very well with JD Powers (yes, most have opinions about that too). I’ve always found JDP to be more useful and realistic because they aren’t sticking their opinions or subjective views into the mix like CR does. On top of that, JDP isn’t getting results only from subscribers like CR does (which tends to tilt the true results). Overall I just find JDP to be the better source and more realistic.
With that said, it’s nice to see that CR and JDP seem to be more aligned now. This certainly gives Buick something to advertise and yell from the tops of the mountains. Yet sadly, they won’t.
Dan, GM probably won’t let them, if it would make its other brands look bad in comparison.
People don’t like CR because they think they have some malicious bias against US automakers. There is no proof of that. Saying “we’re number 1” doesn’t make you number one either just because we like to root for the hometown team.
US automakers have struggled for years and were way behind in the quality gap. Even though the quality gap has narrowed, CR will call out the flaws in all automakers. They gave Tesla high marks and they are a US automaker. When CR does give a good report on a US vehicle, we don’t hear the same folks complain do we?
CR may miss and they may get it wrong from time to time. But largely they have gotten it right. There have been some horrible US vehicles produced in the past and we all know which ones they are. The US pulled out of the sedan market because the Japanese owned it through their sales and share due to better quality. The US automakers moved on to SUV’s and I don’t condemn them for it.
The competition continues. EV cars in the future will be closer in quality because they will have less parts and less to go wrong IMHO.
JD power is a good source but CR and JD look at different metrics and are equally helpful and important.
It is tiresome reading car fan complaints about Consumer Reports. Every car reported on by Consumer Reports was paid for by the people who reported on it or be Consumer Reports itself. The magazines favorite reports are the annual reports on cars sold in the United States. These reports are compilations of owner surveys. People who spent their own money are reporting on their experiences with the cars that their money purchased. Consumer Reports also does reviews of a limited number of vehicles. Every car that Consumer Reports reviews was purchased from a local dealer by Consumer Reports.
Compare this to other magazines. The cars that they report on are provided by the manufacturers. Most new car reviews are published to coincide with the vehicle coming to market. How many times have I read some disgruntled fan claim that Consumer Reports is corrupt? There is a car magazine that freely admits that it reports manufacturer performance and economy figures rather than the results of its own tests. I have never heard that magazine decried as corrupt.
There are many occasions when I don’t like Consumer Reports conclusions. This is because I am not really part of CR’s target audience. It is not because CR is corrupt. To the contrary, it has the least corrupt editorial staff that I know.
MisterMe and The Straight Dope: I will respond once to both your comments. You are both off in what you say. First, CR is a magazine that sells for profit. They advertise and there is zero way for them to stay non-bias when part of their revenue is generated by advertisements. Fact. Second, CR is collecting data from “subscribers” of their magazine. Those who pay for CR have been proven to be favorable towards import brands such as Honda and Toyota. Take that compared to JDP who does NOT use info only from a subscription base. Thirdly, when CR does tests, it’s by them and there is zero way for them to weed out the bias against nor for certain brands. If you go into the testing with a personal preference to import brands, then no matter how hard you try the results will always favor the brands you personally prefer.
Lastly and most importantly to me, CR has reported the absolute wrong specs on cars in their new car edition many times. My opinion is this: If you can’t take actual printed specs from a manufacturer and correctly report those same specs, then you have zero credibility with me. That should stand true for anyone looking at their magazine. Example: going back a few years, I was working at the Buick, Cadillac, GMC and Honda store. In sales, you are required to spend a lot of time learning about your product. Personally, I was the testing coordinator for our dealership and had to be sure all the sales staff were certified. One day my aunt decided to drop off a fresh CR New Car Edition. Let’s just say that within 5 minutes of looking at it, I had found 3 complete mistakes in just the Cadillac section alone. I then went on to find several more just in the Buick section. Needless to say, I did’t continue and found it to be total garbage. One final example? Going back a couple years before that, my buddy who sells at a Chevrolet store pointed out that CR gave the Caprice with the V8 above average for paint quality and below average for the same car in V6, from the same assembly line with the same paint booth! Figure that one out.
So I could go on, but please don’t take it personally when I don’t buy into your defense of CR.
Dan,
Upon reading your reply, I visited the Consumer Reports website. I checked the site specifically for advertising. Almost every website sells ads–some for well-known products and services; others, for obscure products and services. Consumer Reports’s website sells no advertising at all. Consumer Reports, Inc. buys a small amount of advertising but it sells none. It comes as no surprise then that CR has no advertising office.
It read through CR’s most recent financial statement. CR is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation. Nonprofits operate under stringent laws that govern their behavior. If they violate the law, then they can be shutdown. If their auditors allow them to violate the law, then their auditors may lose their licenses. If you have evidence that there is anything hinky going on, then you should report them to the attorney general in the state where they are chartered. You should report them to the nearest U. S. Attorney’s office.
Having read you reply to me, I get the distinct impression that you are looking for any and all excuses to fault CR for writing reviews that you disagree with. Your mountains are just molehills seen under a magnifying glass.
MisterMe: Quite frankly, I don’t care (about CR and anything to do with them) enough to spend any of my time doing what you suggested. The fact that Toyota does so well in CR with all the issues they have and have had (research forums and Toyota known issues) tells me that CR had bias that isn’t showing up in your reading of their website or financial statements. Same with Honda. For 12 long years I worked at a dealership that sold Honda’s along side Buick and Cadillac. I’ve seen the many (MANY) issues Honda’s had over those years and seldom would you see anything in CR about it. Funny thing.
Anyhow, I noticed you only spoke about the advertising side of what I said. Do you care to address the lack of accurate stats reporting CR has done over the years? What about the contradictory reporting of paint quality on the same model vehicles going down the exact same assembly line and through the exact same paint booth? Lastly, can you explain why CR’s reporting has differed from JDP for so long? Personally, I’ll take the info from JDP over CR any day. But in my original post I simply stated that it’s nice to finally see both of them being closer together in the final results. But I don’t have any vested interest in either of them.
Dan,
I would also add that since CR is a readers survey, they have no way of verifying if the people answering the very simplistic questionnaire (I’ve seen it) even own the vehicles in question. In real market research terms, there’s nothing valid about CR’s study at all.
I like to compare CR to reading product “user reviews” on any online shopping site you’d care to name, ie Amazon, Home Depot, etc etc. It’s all basically self reported experience that can’t be verified.
I remember reading of the wife of a senior CR staffer herself holding a senior position with Toyota USA , and of another senior CR staffer departing the magazine and immediately assuming a senior position with Nissan USA. Hmmmmmmm…..
David Russell: I too have read those stories in the past. I can’t confirm nor deny them, but the source of the story seemed reliable and was from a trusted publication. Over the years, I’ve also heard that Toyota was giving “bonuses” to those within CR.
Bottom line? You just can’t have the issues that both Honda and Toyota have had over the years and not have CR correctly report on those same issues. Again, as I’ve said above, I’ve worked with Honda for 12 long years (never again) and I’ve personally seen the issues they have had with almost zero reporting of those things by CR. I have a buddy who’s still with a Toyota store and has been there for over 30 years now. He has told me story after story about issues with Toyota and how the “Toyota drivers” just look the other way and keep buying them.
Lastly, and something neither myself nor anyone else has brought up here on this article is the fact that CR also rates vehicles unfairly. For example, the Jeep brand has often been rates below average because the Wrangler has more than average wind noise and tire noise and it’s ride is harsh. Those are nearly the exact word that were written in CR one time when I was reading it. Yet the Toyota Corolla in that same issue was rated above average with a well mannered and quite ride. Really? So a Wrangler built for off-road agility gets smacked down wile the Toyota is praised? How about they rate the Wrangler for off-road ability and then rate the Corolla for it’s off-road ability? Quite silly at best, wouldn’t you say?