This is America’s Least Reliable Car Brand

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If we’d known ahead of time whether a car we buy would end up in the shop often, we wouldn’t buy it. While clairvoyance is outside of our scope, Consumer Reports, using data from a member survey, tries to identify the car brands that are at least most likely to break down.

In its Annual Auto Surveys , the product review site ranks and scores car brands based on their predicted reliability. To achieve this score (from 1 to 100), the recent survey relied on data on over 330,000 vehicles, mostly from the 2000 to 2023 model years, and studied 20 trouble areas, from minor nuisances to major problems. The brand reliability score was calculated by averaging results from 2021 to 2023, and some early 2024 data when available.

To find the least reliable car brand in America, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the report, listing here all the brands reviewed from most to least reliable. All other information came from Consumer Reports except for 2023 sales, which came from GoodCarBadCar .

Starting with the most reliable car brands, we find Lexus, Toyota, Mini, Honda, and Acura ranking as the five most reliable brands, in that order. Indeed, Asian automakers continue to lead in reliability (with an average score of 63 out of 100), and by a wide margin. They are followed by European makers (46) and finally domestic manufacturers (39).

The least reliable car brands are Chrysler, Mercedes-Benz, and Rivian, with Volkswagen and Jeep rounding out the bottom five least reliable brands. Chrysler’s Pacifica Hybrid also ranks the lowest, having the worst predicted reliability score of the 197 models CR reviewed. Meanwhile, Mercedes-Benz’s five models reviewed rank third to 43rd worse in reliability. Rivian’s two models reviewed rank seventh and eighth worst. Volkswagen’s seven models reviewed rank second last to 38th last, and Jeep’s seven models rank no better than 70th worst. (Also see: These New Cars Are Most Likely to Break Down .)

Why Are We Covering This

Buying a new car only to take it to the shop time and time again is discouraging. Hopefully, this doesn’t happen to any new car buyer, but to lower the chances, CR’s reliability report can help direct buyers to certain brands that are more likely to hold up.

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