What brands of cars are the best? The latest report from Consumer Reports ranked 34 different brands of vehicles on their safety, road test performance, gas mileage, green electric model options, and customer satisfaction. The report is broken into two categories: mainstream brands and luxury brands.
Mainstream brands include cars driven by the largest majority of the population such as Toyota, Ford, and Honda. Per Consumer Reports, Subaru was rated number 1, Honda was rated number 2, and Kia was rated number 3 of all mainstream brands. These scored high on road tests, safety, and owner satisfaction.
The remaining top 10 mainstream brands included Mazda, Hyundai, Toyota, Nissan, Ford, Mitsubishi, and Chevrolet. All of these scored high for mainstream brands, yet it was noted the customer satisfaction score was lower than others in the top 10 for Nissan and Mitsubishi. Toyota was noted as being the highest in customer satisfaction and green options.
Luxury brands include high end cars like Mercedes, BMW, and Audi. Consumer Reports ranks BMW as number 1, Porsche as number 2, and Lexus as number 3 for this year’s luxury brands. The remaining top 10 luxury car brands included Mini Cooper, Acura, Audi, Buick, Cadillac, Genesis, and Infiniti. Interestingly, Mercedes was one of the lower rated luxury brands as was Land Rover and Jaguar.
When scores were combined on all 34 brands, the top 5 was a mix of mainstream and luxury. BMW ranked overall number 1, Subaru number 2, Porsche number 3, Honda number 4, and Lexus number 5.
Consumer Reports noted that they are reporting BMW, Porsche, Honda, Mini Cooper, Kia, Mazda, and Acura as their top recommendations in 2024. They claim you can buy those brands with confidence this year.
In the end, Consumer Reports is putting BMW as the best overall brand for 2024. Yet, there are mainstream brands like Honda or Kia that are highly suggested with towering scores. This shows that there are dependable car brands out there for every car buyer at different price points.
