What’s the Most Reliable Car? You’re Asking the Wrong Question

When I start researching vehicles for my clients, and most of my clients do have reliability as one of their priorities, I start in the same places that most consumers do.

I look at the reliability ratings.

They're a fantastic starting point, but they can also be a confusing one.

If you turn on the TV, especially during football season, which is somehow coming up again, time is flying, you'll hear one commercial bragging that their brand was named highest ranked in initial quality by J.D. Power.

And then there'll be a different commercial for a different brand that says, hey, we're the most reliable brand.

And then Subaru will tell you it's Consumer Reports' top reliable brand.

But then Toyota is historically the most reliable brand.

And then Edmunds has its top-rated awards.

And then Motor Trend comes out with its car, truck, and SUV of the year.

Pretty soon you're wondering, how can all of these vehicles be the best? Well, the trick is understanding which study each company is actually measuring because they're not all measuring the same thing.

But there are a lot of different studies, enough of which that each manufacturer can kind of pick and choose to make themselves sound the coolest.

so i want to break down some of these so that you understand some of the different studies that are done and what they actually mean and that may let you call on some of those tv commercials so let's start with jd power that's probably the biggest name in automotive rewards this is where you will hear the car commercials proudly proclaiming these things highest brand ranked in initial quality or highest dependability it sounds pretty straightforward right that just means it's the most reliable car No, not exactly.

J.D. Power doesn't actually have one reliability study.

They actually have several studies that the manufacturers like to cherry pick which one they supposedly won.

The biggest one is the initial quality study or the IQS.

This study measures problems that owners experience during the first 90 days of ownership.

Now, before you dismiss that as totally meaningless, it actually tells us something useful.

It's measuring how well the vehicle was assembled and how well the software works right out of the gate.

That indicates how smoothly your early ownership experience goes because that is when you are most likely to formulate your opinions about this car.

GD Powers counts every single problem equally.

And this is what most people don't realize and where the data can get a little bit skewed.

So if you say, oh, the Bluetooth connection won't stay paired.

Okay, that's one problem.

Backup camera freezes, that's a problem.

An engine blows up, yeah, that's a problem, but still only gets one point.