Chevy scored lower in the most recent annual Consumer Reports Reliability Rankings survey, indicating decreased reliability across the Bowtie’s lineup.
In the yearly report, Chevy fell 10 spots to 20th in the rankings. That places GM’s mass-market brand only five spots from the bottom of the list, which was rounded out by Chevy corporate sibling, GMC, along with Volkswagen, Jeep and Mercedes-Benz currently reside.
Of all GM brands, Chevy ranked as one of the worst. The only GM make that scored lower was GMC, at 21, while Cadillac and Buick were both ranked higher at 17 and 11, respectively.
The Consumer Reports (CR) reliability score is calculated on a 0-to-100-point scale, with an average score falling between 41 and 60 points. CR noted that domestic brands ranked lower in reliability compared to their foreign competitors, with an average score of 40. Comparatively, Asian and European brands were graded with average scores of 59 and 51, respectively.
The rankings include four categories of vehicles (average predicted reliability score in parenthesis):
- Cars (58)
- SUVs (51)
- Minivans (44)
- Pickups (39)
Sedans, hatchbacks, and coupes make up the cars category, which is the most reliable vehicle category in the survey with an average predicted reliability score of 58. It’s followed by SUVs at 51, then minivans at 44. Pickups are the least reliable category with an average score of 39.
That said, domestic automakers buck this trend, with their SUVs and pickups, scoring 45 and 41, respectively, proving more reliable than their cars, which scored 38.
As far as electrified vehicles go, hybrids and plug-ins are the most reliable, posting a score of 78. As a whole, fully electric vehicles rank as the second least reliable sector, behind full-size pickups.
To obtain all this information, CR surveyed members about problems they’ve had with their vehicles in the last 12 months. For the 2022 report, data was gathered on more than 300,000 vehicles, from the 2000 to 2023 model years. This data addressed 17 problem areas, including engine, transmission and electronics. Using this information, CR then give reliability ratings for every mainstream model. For an automaker to be ranked, sufficient survey data for two or more models must be submitted.
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Comments
Consumer Reports is a rag mag, 1985 my father in law showed up with a brand new Toyota Corolla, he was all ways a Chevy guy. I work for GM, so I asked, why Toyota? He said he had it with gas guzzlers!! I didn’t want to tell him that he could have just bought a Nova for $1,000 cheaper. The following year Consumer Reports came out with the “small car guide”, The Corolla was at the top of the list while the Nova was at the bottom. You see being a GM employee you know how cars are built. The Corolla and Nova was what people call badge engineering. Those two models went down the same line one after another with the same workers building them. The only difference was a bow tie on one grill and horn pad, while the other said TOYOTA. I wouldn’t even wipe my azz with a Consumer Reports page.
Al: I agree with you on nearly everything. Having been in the auto industry for nearly 22 years now going all the way back to 1988, I’ve seen a lot of what you said. A Caprice v6 that they rated paint quality completely differently than the v8. Reporting completely wrong specs on the lines I worked with. Different ratings for the Matrix vs. Vibe. And then there’s the huge part of the equation where these rankings are attained almost in total from “subscribers” of the magazine. It’s well known that a good percentage of CR subscribers are import leaning. This tilts the results. For example, I’ve owned many new vehicles from a couple imports to mostly GM with a few Ford/Lincoln and Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep. This spans over nearly 40 years. Never once have I been surveyed by CR because I’m not paying for their BS. However, over the years I’ve been asked to fill out a number of (quite lengthy) JD Power’s surveys.
But the bottom line is that both CR and JDP have value in certain ways. In terms of CR, I feel it’s an ok way to determine the basics, but it takes a lot more than just their “recommendations”.
I posted this with the GMC scoring well in the JDP index article which I think warrants asking again here.
Does the average person really pay attention to these surveys?
There are so many of these yearly rankings that seem to be contradicting. Reportedly GMC ranks well here in the JD Powers Sales Satisfaction Index survey yet just released Consumer Reports Most Reliable Cars rankings put GMC near the bottom 21 out of 24. Confusing – yes.
Do they pay attention to JDP, no. Do they pay attention to CR, yes.
tmw: I’m in the fleet department at a dealership and was in sales for about 15 years before this. There are certainly people who take CR and JDP seriously.
But to help on your question, you need to be sure which survey you are looking at. Above you bring up the GMC in the JDP sales satisfaction index (SSI). That is very different from JDP vehicle dependability studies. SSI is about the buying and sales experience. The vehicle dependability study is where JDP measures the problems per 100 cars. They do studies after initial purchase (IQS), after 3 years and then down the road as well. Their 3 year study would be closest to what CR attempts to do.
Hope that helps.
thanks for the clarification but that doesn’t really answer my question — does the average person pay attention to these surveys.
I have exceptional service with my GM vehicles. My oldest is a 2005 GMC Serria is a great Truck with the 5.3 V8. Great service from my 2015 Cruze also.
Same deal with the Toyota Matrix and the Pontiac Vibe. Same car.
Daughter had a Vibe. It was a good reliable vehicle.
LOL. I remember this. My dad always buys Toyotas. Then one day he came with a brand new Chevy Nova and, being the teenager I was, I had to ask what happened. His answer: It’s a Toyota, but less expensive.
Everybody knows GM lacks in quality. It’s disappointing it is still happening after the bailout when they should have been allowed to sink.
If we’re going by anecdotes, not facts as CR does, I know plenty of GM die hards who brag about how great their vehicles are, and then proceeed to explain they are on their 2nd transmission, and 3rd fuel pump , and the check engine light is always on, all before 100k miles, as if that is normal.
c r is the written version of PBS, public broadcast system…. filled with hard left anti-Amerucan morons that likely don’t have an automobile, climate change idiots, by the way someone should ask these cretins, what the hell are you going to do about climate change if it even existed? it’s true if you lie often enough, long enough then the weak minds will believe it…i live in a large city and its common to see honda’s toyota’s, nissans, , you name it .. sitting next to the jersey barrier along the freeway… most likely import buyers are biden voters, and that fool they elected in pennsylvania to the senate.. wake up AMERICA
Pfft… CR always take a dump on domestic automakers, especially GM for the past 40 plus years with barely any let up. I can’t take them seriously, even when they give good recommendations I just say they can keep it. They get no respect from me.
CR has always been made up of foreign fanboys.
I have two Chevys and a Pontiac sitting in the driveway now and wouldn’t trade any of them for anything else.
Not even an EV?
They rate Chevy and Mercedes low. I own both. They have been near perfect. CR sucks
Scotty got high on Toyota and never came down.
Scotty has been fixing cars for over 60 years.
That alone gives him credibility to recommend brands.
How many cars have you personally fixed? Zero?
SCOTTY is a shill and not a likeable one at that….. by the way a friend of mine works at a toyota dealership and he tells me when the old codgers bring their cars in for oil changes, wiper blades or what ever techs are instructed to fix for no charge known toyota problems even if the old codgers ask why it took 4 hours to change wiper blades
Consumer Reports has and will always be a joke. They always bash American cars and praise Asian cars.
If it was a beautiful sunny day CR would say we’re in a hurricane ,,they are all BS
Before I retired from GM, management would always let us know when whatever we were building if we scored high or low on JDP. They would also mention CR only because they made us look bad in the public eye. The way GM conducts its internal quality control is the same metric that JDP uses.
I’ve owned GM vehicles for 40+ years. I had a few recalls but that’s it…never any major repairs so I have no idea where CR gets their data… and I’ve never been surveyed.
I dumped CR years ago… they had the gall to ask for additional donations beyond their subscription cost.
I agree, me too. Got rid of my CR subscription a couple of years ago. I have a 2013 Chevy Traverse with about 130K on it. It’s been a fantastic vehicle. Other than normal maintenance, the only part that I had to replace was an engine mount. Also, I hit a deer and $7,000 later they had to replace a few parts, radiator, water pump, etc.
I love the Traverse. My next vehicle will be either another Traverse or Cadillac XT6. And a C7 for a retirement present to myself! 🙂
Ever since CR down rated a domestic because the exhaust stunk, I have not used them for any kind of objective research. I didn’t care for the way they rated cars anyway. Some of the complaints they listed from owners were ridiculously nit picky and had nothing to do with actually driving a car.
CR ranked my 94 chevy s10 too early to score but predicted poor for reliability ? Well 19 years and 464,000 miles later still on the road ! Gotta love the reliability and cost of ownership ! easy to maintain – diagnose – repair – standardized parts are low cost and plentiful !
In order to be insulted you must first value that person’s( or CR’s in this case) opinion which GM does not. CR is garbage,never giving any kudos to American car companies.They can keep taking money bribes from the imports all they want but the imports don’t sell as well in the USA.For instance a year or so ago GM,Ford and Ram sold almost 3 million trucks while Toyota sold about 99,000 Tundras and Nissan about 67,000 Titans.Yeah so you need to be an actual threat to be taken seriously.I currently have a 1984 K5 Blazer restored,2000 Corvette,2014 Impala,2017 Camaro ss and a 2019 Silverado Trail Boss.I don’t have any issues with my rides,I take care of them meticulously and would trust any one of them for a cross country trip.CR can p*ss off.
Here is “The Deal” with Consumer Reports, if you are rated low on their Quality Index scale, you hate them, complain about them and find so many things wrong with them, which is easy to do after all they are a business and need capital to operate, but…if they were to rate you high on the QIS, then you love them, because they seem to be able to pick and choose who they want to be at various levels on their scale. It’s all about money, if GM does not contribute to their causes (of course this is done discreetly, CR isn’t going to publicly admit to this, but it does exist through advertising ect.) and Toyota does “contribute” then guess whose placed in the upper listing on their Quality Index Scale.
There will be those who disagree stating that Consumer Report Magazine is beyond doing something like this, those who support CR are totally within their right to do so and probably will go along with whatever they say is The Best Choice, and they’ll back up this claim by manipulating their points system to honor whatever vehicle they feel will get them the best customer reviews and will agree with their choices….it’s a business, and to be successful in the business world you have to know how to “play the business game” if you want to stay a success, and over the years CR can claim to be a success by “playing the business game” and leaning towards Asian manufactures as being at the top of the list while berating most domestic brand vehicles.
In actuality, most every make and model, foreign or domestic are pretty darn close in reliability ect. or they wouldn’t be in business today. However in truth, the Asian based manufactures are more inclined to “sweat the small details” and they seem to also (but not always) procure and demand their dealers be a more customer friendly place, and when things do go wrong with their products (and they do, Asian products are not perfect by any means!) they seem to be willing and able to “take care of business” quickly and more efficiently then many domestic manufactures seem to be willing to do.
As a former GM employee for almost 40 years, I can attest to “being there” within the West Coast GM assembly and quality control systems, visiting various dealerships (sometimes without telling the dealerships of our status if we thought it would be beneficial for us to gather information) who seem to be having multiple problems for various reasons with our products.
Sometimes we could see the “error of our ways in design and build” from a factory level too, we were not perfect by any means, and many times we gained valuable information as to how we can improve our products….but, gathering our information and actually getting “The Powers That Be” in Detroit to do something about it is another story entirely.
Anyway, I won’t bore you with any more stories…today, “it is, what it is” and there will always be differences of opinion as to who builds the better and more reliable products, European, Asian or Domestic manufactures and whether Consumer Reports magazine is a reliable magazine or one that caters to a certain foreign automotive group. It’s your call, and you can speak with your own choices…one way or the other, accept or deny CR as you so wish. Isn’t America wonderful, we consumers have so many choices on so many levels, foreign and domestic. Hard to find fault with that system.
Here is the problem with CR ratings and replies on quality are based on only items sent in by subscribers. This is not the full spectrum of ownership.
It is far from scientific or accurate.
As for Scotty he is just another web village idiot.
I have fixed many cars and many Toyotas.
Everyone has good and bad.
CR must get a pretty good kick back from the foreign auto makers!
My neighbor is the COO of six dealerships Two Honda, one Toyota, one Chevrolet, one Ford, one Cadillac. He says that their warranty/recall expense per vehicle is lowest on Honda, Toyota is second, then Cadillac, Chevrolet and Ford. He says that Ford is by far the highest and Honda usually the lowest. They measure both labor hours and parts.
Ford’s reliability is so bad that they hired Josh Halliburton from JD Powers to try and improve their quality.
I think CR is a bit bias, although, it is true that Camaro ls and Corvettes are way better built compared to Chevys “normal” lineup (example: Blazer and Trax).
Motorweek, the T.V. auto show, seems to be in bed with CR!
GM will continue to rank low in CR reliability.
1) Absolutely no one at GM has “improving CR reliability” on their performance review.
2) When trade-offs are made during vehicle development, reliability always loses. Why? because none of they Program Team
will be around or accountable when the rating come out.
3) In short, no one is accountable for reliability.
Would you buy an Autonomous vehicle from a company with poor reliability?
CR has never been fair to GM. I have subscribed to the magazine for 10 years, and they have yet to give GM a good review. For that matter, CR has never been fair to any of the Big 3. Working for GM for over 30 years in all areas of the business, I know a vehicle might have a defect or two, but to continuously find fault and rank American vehicles to the bottom is wrong. I, for one, do not believe their numbers. Ms Marta L. Tellado, president and CEO of Consumer Reports (CR), should wake up.
I had 2002 Chevy Trailblazer. Heard that it was the worst model year for that truck. She ran ran for 20 years. If that’s the worst chevy had got, I’m still In.
Bought a 2022 Trailblazer and she has has given me zero trouble so far. I’ve had bad cars before, and I won’t keep them. I look forward to Chevrolet EVs. I hope they hlt it out of the park.
I have an ‘05 Toyota Tacoma which was built at NUMMI in Fremont back when it was a joint GM / Toyota venture. The fame and a lot of attached parts on my truck corroded so fiercely that Toyota voluntarily replaced the entire frame, leaf springs, etc. The original frame was made by Dana and coated with greasy black stuff rather than actual paint.
Did GM also manufacture small pickups at NUMMI? I haven’t heard of a massive service campaign by GM to replace frames like Toyota had to do with Tacomas and Tundras. It could be possible for two quite different quality vehicles to come off the same line, as in GM painted their frames instead of greasing them.
I had an ‘89 Mazda MX-6 which was mechanically virtually identical to a Ford Probe. Both were built on the same line in Flatrock, MI. The largest difference was Mazda got a Fujitsu Ten radio and Probes got Philco. The sheetmetal was different, but the running gear was the same. The motor valve cover had the Mazda or Ford nameplate attached with two screws for quick assignment of brand name. There was one difference: the Mazda could be had with four wheel steering, but not the Ford. Anyway, the MX-6 got higher quality ranking than the Probe despite the commonality. Curiously the Mazda rated a few percent more domestic part content on the window sticker than the the Ford even though it had a Japanese radio.
I would have to agree with this ranking. I have been a GM (both Chevy and GMC) owner of trucks for my last 5 vehicles. I have never had one with so many issues. (minor and major) like the latest one I have. Electrical Grounding problems, software issues, Transmission (replaced at 110k miles), and a New (reman) motor. Only because I’m still paying on it and I’ve already replaced the transmission and transfer case.