With more than 800,000 owners telling you what's been good and bad about their vehicles over the years, the Consumer Reports vehicle reliability study makes for some very loud word of mouth for the prospective buyer of a used vehicle.
In an effort to make that message clear as well as loud, the editors of CR's annual auto issue prepare a ''Used Cars: Best & Worst'' report, which lists the vehicles they think used buyers should be considering and which they might want to avoid.
This year, with the advise from 135,000 more owners than took part in the survey last year, CR has come up with a list of 54 Good Bets and 34 Bad Bets. That's seven more of the former, by the way, and 15 more of the later.
CR uses the reliability surveys from the annual auto report (which is just now going on sale for $5.99) and from www.consumerreports.org, which requires an annual subscription to get to the most detailed information year-round.
For the purposes of these two lists, CR gives extra weight to problems with the engine, engine cooling, transmission, and drive system.
Before launching into these lists, it's worth pointing out that the vehicles that rank at the bottom of the list aren't the lemon-esque nightmares of 20 or 30 years ago. According to CR's reliability charts, even the vehicles at the bottom of the list are scoring about 1.4 problems per car/minivan/truck/SUV a year after eight years on the road. To be sure that's about twice as high as the best models rate, but it's still not that bad.
On top of that, there are lots of people who don't mind a little extra effort if it means owning a car they really like. Consider the owner of a VW Touareg SUV quoted by CR in its annual auto issue. ''When it's running properly, it's great to drive. But it's been back in the shop at least seven times and sometimes I want to drive it off a cliff. I still love it, though.''
It's also interesting to note how price or brand pretension have little to do with where a vehicle ends up -- consider for example that three models from Mercedes-Benz were added to the Bad Bets list this year, and so was the Land Rover Discovery, Lincoln Navigator and Volvo S80.
Finally, CR Good Bets and CR Bad Bets include only the models for which the magazine has sufficient data for at least three model years, and models that were new in 2003 and 2004 do not appear.
Having said all that, here are the Consumer Reports Used Cars: Best & Worst lists for 2004. The new models on the lists are marked with an asterisk (*).
BEST BETS:
-Acura Integra
-Acura MDX
-Acura RL
-Acura RSX *
-Acura TL
-Buick Regal
-Chevrolet/Geo Prizm
-Chrysler PT Cruiser
-Ford Crown Victoria*
-Ford Escort
-Honda Accord
-Honda Civic
-Honda CR-V
-Honda Odyssey
-Honda Prelude
-Honda S2000
-Infiniti G20
-Infiniti I30/I35
-Infiniti Q45*
-Infiniti QX4
In an effort to make that message clear as well as loud, the editors of CR's annual auto issue prepare a ''Used Cars: Best & Worst'' report, which lists the vehicles they think used buyers should be considering and which they might want to avoid.
This year, with the advise from 135,000 more owners than took part in the survey last year, CR has come up with a list of 54 Good Bets and 34 Bad Bets. That's seven more of the former, by the way, and 15 more of the later.
CR uses the reliability surveys from the annual auto report (which is just now going on sale for $5.99) and from www.consumerreports.org, which requires an annual subscription to get to the most detailed information year-round.
For the purposes of these two lists, CR gives extra weight to problems with the engine, engine cooling, transmission, and drive system.
Before launching into these lists, it's worth pointing out that the vehicles that rank at the bottom of the list aren't the lemon-esque nightmares of 20 or 30 years ago. According to CR's reliability charts, even the vehicles at the bottom of the list are scoring about 1.4 problems per car/minivan/truck/SUV a year after eight years on the road. To be sure that's about twice as high as the best models rate, but it's still not that bad.
On top of that, there are lots of people who don't mind a little extra effort if it means owning a car they really like. Consider the owner of a VW Touareg SUV quoted by CR in its annual auto issue. ''When it's running properly, it's great to drive. But it's been back in the shop at least seven times and sometimes I want to drive it off a cliff. I still love it, though.''
It's also interesting to note how price or brand pretension have little to do with where a vehicle ends up -- consider for example that three models from Mercedes-Benz were added to the Bad Bets list this year, and so was the Land Rover Discovery, Lincoln Navigator and Volvo S80.
Finally, CR Good Bets and CR Bad Bets include only the models for which the magazine has sufficient data for at least three model years, and models that were new in 2003 and 2004 do not appear.
Having said all that, here are the Consumer Reports Used Cars: Best & Worst lists for 2004. The new models on the lists are marked with an asterisk (*).
BEST BETS:
-Acura Integra
-Acura MDX
-Acura RL
-Acura RSX *
-Acura TL
-Buick Regal
-Chevrolet/Geo Prizm
-Chrysler PT Cruiser
-Ford Crown Victoria*
-Ford Escort
-Honda Accord
-Honda Civic
-Honda CR-V
-Honda Odyssey
-Honda Prelude
-Honda S2000
-Infiniti G20
-Infiniti I30/I35
-Infiniti Q45*
-Infiniti QX4