Abstract
This page provides two rankings of the Top 10 car brands sold in North America between late 1992 and 1999. Each ranking employs a different method of computation.
The 10 Best Car Brands of 2000
This page provides two rankings of the Top 10 car brands sold in North America between late 1992 and 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.
Brand Quality by Infrequency of Trouble-Prone Models: The Top 10
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 Rel;iability-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.
From the graph, it may be seen that the Top 10 brands by infrequency of trouble-prone models include both brands of Toyota Motor Corporation, Toyota and Lexus, both brands of Nissan Motor Company, Infiniti and Nissan, Fuji Heavy Industries’ Subaru, BMW AG’s BMW, Suzuki Motor Corporation’s Suzuki, Volkswagen AG’s Audi, and General Motors Corporation’s Saturn. If the Honda Passport, a product of Isuzu Motors Ltd. rebadged as a Honda, were deleted from the Honda count, Honda’s Honda brand would be number two and GM’s Saturn would disappear from the Top 10.
Brand Quality by the Average of Overall Reliability Ratings: The Top 10
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. (In 2000, Consumer Reports employed only three overall-rating grades – Better Than Average, Average, and 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.
For this measure of quality, the range is from -1.0 (the worst possible) to +1.0 (the best possible).
The 10 best car brands by this set of computations, together with their quality ratings, are given in the bar graph below. Only those brands with at least 5 overall CR reliability ratings are included.
From this graph, it may be seen that the Top 10 brands by overall reliability include both of Nissan’s brands, Infiniti and Nissan, both of Toyota’s brands, Lexus and Toyota, both of Honda’s brands, Acura and Honda, Fuji’s Subaru, BMW, Suzuki, and Mazda Motor Corporation’s Mazda brand.
Summary
There are 8 brands common to both best-10 lists; they are:
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Both of Toyota’s brands - Lexus and Toyota
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Both of Nissan’s brands – Infiniti and Nissan
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Honda’s Acura
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Fuji’s Subaru
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BMW
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Suzuki
To view the graphs showing the ratings and rankings of all brands, visit http://carsoninfo.net/AllCarBrandRatingsof2000.aspx .
With regard to the above link to Cars on Info, the host is Microsoft; consequently, if you click the link, you will likely need to click the refresh button once or twice to access the linked page.
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