Having the Malibu ranked at #1 seems a little optimistic in my opinion, the other top 10 seems to make some sense. I always thought these rankings were contradictory as they seem to ignore branding...isn't the LX 470 a rebadged Toy Land Cruiser with better trim and options??
Take a look at these comments on what are likely out of warranty Malibus, I certainly hope they've fixed the bugs by now:
Chevy still has the most percentage of cars on the road since production, based on owner registration (according to one of their ads).
But I think the JD Powers long term reliability means the number of problems found at 3 years. So I too am surprised by Malibu's ranking as #1. I am looking to buy a car towards the end of the year, and while the GM Epislon platform received very good ratings for a family sedan, I never thought of looking at the Malibu (based on the Epislon platform) because of GM's history. But that could change.
Another surprise is that the Camry hasn't even shown up in the top 40. What's going on? I heard about Camrys having problems since the cost reduction started in 1997, but I would think it ranked at least better than the Altimas, which were gaining sales lately while having production problems in the new US plant.
But JD Powers is an authority in these rankings, so who knows. At least the Lexus ranked higher than their Toyota counterparts. So they got those right.
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