2000 Auto Brand Quality Ratings and Rankings
by James Bleeker

Content Summary

This page provides two rankings of the brands of automobiles sold in North America from model year 1992 to 1999. Each ranking employs a different method of computation.

The statistics used in the computations for rating and ranking the brands are those found within the April 2000 issue of Consumer Reports. The two sections providing the necessary statistics are CR's Used-Cars-To-Avoid list and its reliability charts. Reliability is defined by the magazine as the infrequency of serious problems, which it measures annually by a subscriber survey.

The first ranking of the car brands is based on each brand's infrequency of trouble-prone models. This ranking provides a measure of how well each brand's models successfully avoided the bottom end of the model-quality spectrum.

The second ranking of the car brands is based on the average of the overall reliability ratings of each brand's models. The second ranking provides a measure of how well a brand's models performed over the entire model-quality spectrum.

2000 Auto Brand Quality by Infrequency of Trouble-Prone Models

To form a brand-quality measure from the 2000 list of Used Cars To Avoid, the first step is to count each brand's entries on the list. Each model year of each model is treated as a separate entry.

Next, as the number of automobile models sold under a brand name varies greatly from brand to brand, it is necessary to take account of the fact that a brand with more models has a greater opportunity to have more model years of low quality. To compensate for a possibly inflated, or deflated, frequency of trouble-prone model years within a brand, as well as a variability in model data sufficiency, the number of a brand's entries in CR's 2000 Used-Cars-To-Avoid list is divided by the total number of overall reliability ratings for the brand found in the reliability charts of the same issue of Consumer Reports. The overall reliability ratings are found in the Reliability-Verdict row of the 2000 reliability charts.

By the method of computation, this quality measure begins with 0 and may run to a value some greater than 1. The value of 0 is the highest quality rating attainable by a brand and is achieved only when a brand has no entry on the Used-Cars-To-Avoid list.

The quality ranking of the car brands by the foregoing computations, together with their quality ratings, is given in the first bar graph below. Only those brands with at least 5 overall CR reliability ratings are included.

2000 Auto Brand Quality by the Average of Overall Reliability Ratings

To compute brand-quality ratings and assemble a brand-quality ranking using Consumer Reports' overall reliability ratings, a number is associated with each rating. A +1.0 is ascribed to a rating of Better Than Average, a 0 to a rating of Average, and a -1.0 to a rating of Worse Than Average. Then an average is taken over all of the brand's model years and models offering an overall reliability rating. CR's 2000 overall reliability ratings are found in the Reliability-Verdict row of its reliability charts and are limited to three grades - Better Than Average, Average, and Worse Than Average.

For this measure of quality, the range is from -1.0 (the worst possible) to +1.0 (the best possible).

The quality ranking of the car brands by this set of computations, together with their quality ratings, is given in the second bar graph below. Only those brands with at least 5 overall CR reliability ratings are included.

The Bar Graphs of 2000 Brand Quality

In both of the graphs that follow, the order of the car brands is with the best on top.

When two or more brands have no entry in CR's list of Used Cars To Avoid, the brands are listed in descending order of number of overall reliability ratings (a brand with a greater number of overall reliability ratings appears above a brand with fewer ratings), as those brands with a greater number of ratings would have a greater opportunity for a trouble-prone model year to be found.

Summary and Analysis

As noted above, the first graph ranks brands by infrequency of trouble-prone models. By this measure, those brands with the greatest improvement in rank from 1995 were:

Acura's leap in rank was due to:

1. A very small number of models within the brand and

2. One bad model year for two models with a manual transmission in the 1995 computations.

Note that all three of Ford's North American lines improved at the bottom end of the spectrum.

Those brands with the greatest drop in rank from 1995 as measured by infrequency of trouble-prone models were:

Honda's plunge in standing was due to its decision to market an Isuzu sport-utility vehicle as the Honda Passport.

Note that General Motors and the Chrysler Group accounted for the bulk of the brands suffering a drop in standing at the low end of the quality spectrum, in very sharp contrast to Ford Motor Company's improvement.

By the broader measure of quality (the second graph), the brands with the greatest improvement in rank from 1995 were:

By this broader measure as well, all three of Ford's North American brands improved.

Those brands with the greatest drop in standing from 1995 by the broader measure of quality were:

Honda's drop in rank by the broader measure was likely due, entirely or nearly entirely, to its decision to market an Isuzu sport-utility vehicle as the Honda Passport.

Note that General Motors and Chrysler accounted for half of the drops in rank by this broader measure of quality.

It should be noted that for the 1995 broader measure, reliability percentranks (see CarsOnInfo.net: 1988 to 1998 Car Reliability Percentrank Averages for Car Brands) were used, as Consumer Reports did not offer overall reliability ratings in its April 1995 issue. Consequently, some of the change in rank may be due to this difference. However, note that generally very little change in rank occurred, suggesting that the substitution provided a very equivalent overall-reliability measure.

In the computation of the change in Auto Brand Rank, brands not common to both the 1995 and 2000 rankings were excluded and the remaining brands were re-ranked accordingly.

Additional Resources

To view the graphs showing the 2000 ratings and rankings of the car manufacturers, click Go.

For a Google Knol that summarizes the changes in auto-brand and auto-manufacturer ranking by these quality measures from 1990 to 2010, click Go.

AutoOnInfo.net: The auto-quality website with the Open Directory Cool Site Award.