Consumer Reports best cars 2017

Alas, a critical measure missing: timescale. How well those figures stand up over time. There needs to be a slider showing how those figures may change for increasing length of ownership.

Owner satisfication may grow or wane over time depending on the owner's experience with the vehicle after the new-car scent has evaporated. I'm not sure how 1, 3, or 6 months can accurately reflect owner satisfaction. How can reliability be measured for cars only a few months old? If there is a link in that article on how they did their testing, I missed it.

It's not based on a few months of data but on years. If you want to know how they rate cars, find a copy of last April's magazine at your library.

After rereading the article, I realized it says "In our *2017 analysis* of which car brands make the best vehicles". That is when they aggregated their statistics, not for the model years of the vehicles despite later saying "for new cars". A report in 2017 about new cars sure would seem to construe the model year was also 2017. Instead this is an aggregate score over an unknown number of years (I don't know if they employ a cutoff after so many years; i.e., use a flooring function to delete archaic data that is likely irrelevant).

Thanks for the hint. Don't need to go to the library, though.

That had a link to:

That had a link to their car ratings guide at:

Notice the datestamp in the URL; however, the article itself shows a last updated datestamp of February 2017.

Still pretty generic descriptions. Do they every publish their checklists, even if aggregated data (but preferably with year model delineation), with the ratings and combined comments from their track test drivers along with the weightings for each rating? I suppose if they made public their database and rating algorithms that readership of their articles would diminish. Still have to wonder how such ratings could help car makers and dealers improve their wares without the specifics, but then they have info to which consumers are not privy.

If I was interested in a particular brand and model, I'd like as much info as possible, good and bad, rather than generalized ratings. So far, I've had to rent the candidate vehicle for a week to test it myself for my use, needs, and wants. I hate buying blind for such a large outlay of money or based on generalized ratings.

Please sir, I want some more.

Consumer Reports is not Road & Track or Car & Driver.

The April issue summarizes the results of the last few years of testing and reader surveys. If you want more info on a particular model, look in the index of any issue and find out when that car was reported on. Then find that issue of the mag. Even so, the report will be only a half page long. It will highlight what they liked and what they disliked. For example, they will tell you if they found the menuing system hard to use. You'll also learn that they absolutely love the 2014 and later Foresters.