I was surprised to read that the 2 bottom trim levels of the
new Passat do not come with automatic headlights. You have
to spring for the third trim level (called Lux) to get the
automatics. Kinda surprised me. All trims are turbo, though,
even the bottom trim. The little 4-cylinder (just 2.0 liter)
engine can put out 200 horsepower.
The Jetta, assembled in Mexico, now comes with a 5th cylinder.
It's an inline 5, and boasts 2.5 liters, more than my 2.4 liter
Camry. But Consumer Re****ts says Volkswagen isn't known for
its long-term reliability. A Consumer Re****ts survey of owners
listed the '06 Passat as one of the least reliable family cars,
but it drives really good, nice handling.
The King of Reliability is Toyota, even besting Honda, which
is the Queen, a close second to Toyota. Info coming from the
April, 2007, issue.
Nissan (and its luxury nameplate Infiniti) is all over the map
in reliability, from good reliability for some models to
downright poor reliablility for other Nissan and Infiniti
models (info based on 2006 survey for 3 most recent
model years' data).
Subaru and Hyundai also did respectably well in the survey.
All the other manufacturers, though, showed wide ranges in
reliability from poor to bad--similar to Nissan's showing.
Mercedes-Benz was at the bottom of the 36-nameplate heap,
which really surprised me. Every time I get a hankering
for a German car, I just gotta read Consumer Re****ts and
I change my mind about wanting a German car (or even a U.S.
car, I'm sad to say).
I'm sure U.S. cars are improving dramatically, though.
This was Consumer Re****ts '06 survey, 2 years old now, so
it didn't include '07 and '08 models. Some Mercury models
did really well in the survey, as did some Lincoln models, but
some other Lincoln and Mercury models scored badly in the 3-year
reliability survey. However, an outstanding Lincoln stand-out
is the Lincoln Zephyr (or Lincoln MKZ which it was later known as).
Going back to Mercedes for a second, in the survey, an
8-year-old Lexus scored better in reliablity than a new
Mercedes-Benz ML500. (Yow.) Consumer Re****ts says the
Lexus LS tops its survey, year in and year out. The
1998 Lexus LS400 "had fewer problems than the 2006
Mercedes-Benz ML500"--remember this survey was done
in 2006, two years ago, so they were comparing an 8-year-old car to a
new car.
The top 7 nameplates were:
1) Toyota
2) Honda
3) Scion (a Toyota brand)
4) Acura (Honda luxury brand)
5) Lexus (Toyota luxury brand)
6) Subaru
7) Hyundai (but Hyundai's subsidiary Kia didn't do so well)
All other companies' nameplates had some models which turned
in less-than-average 3-year reliability scores. As mentioned,
some models for the companies really excelled, but other models
from the same companies did poorly.
BMW, another German car I've desired before reading
Consumer Re****ts, didn't do so well either.
The BMW 7-series was among the least reliable luxury cars, along
with the Jaguar S-Type. BMW, as a whole, scored in the middle
of the 36 name-plate bunch.
Some of the least reliable small cars were the Chevrolet Cobalt,
the 5-cylinder Volkswagen Jetta, and the Chevy Aveo.
There were over 1.3 million cars re****ted on in the 2006 Consumer
Re****ts Annual Car Reliablity Survey.
Looking at more long-term data, the 1999 BMW 5 Series V8 had
the worst engine cooling problem rate, with 34 percent. "In
addition, 2000 to 2001 BMW 5 Series V8 and BMW 7-Series all
had about 30 percent of their owners re****ting engine-cooling
woes."
A quote from the article:
"More than half of the 2004 Infiniti QX56, Nissan Armada, and
Nissan Titan owners re****ted a brake problem. And almost half
of 2005 Armada and Titan owners also re****ted brake problems."
Now this Acura thing surprised me:
"Nearly a quarter of owners of the 2001 Acura CL re****ted
a bad tansmission problem, and nearly the same percentage of
1999 Volvo XC70s were re****ted to suffer from fuel-system problems."
Damn, everytime I think of expanding my horizons beyond
Toyota, cold, hard survey data and results bring me back,
keeping me loyal to Toyota.
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