Every year, car buyers eagerly anticipate the Consumer Reports car brand report card. This comprehensive ranking system evaluates automakers based on the average Overall Score of their vehicles. This score is a robust metric, combining road-test performance, safety assessments, predicted reliability, and owner satisfaction data. The report card provides consumers with a clear, data-driven perspective on which Car Makes truly excel and those that might be best to avoid when making a purchase decision.
For the 2025 report, covering 32 distinct car makes, the top tier has largely maintained its composition from the previous year. However, there’s a notable shift at the very top: Subaru has ascended to the number one position, overtaking BMW, which held the top spot last year. Subaru edged out BMW by a mere single point in the average Overall Score, demonstrating the competitiveness at the peak of car brand excellence.
Lexus also made a significant move, climbing from fifth to third place in the rankings. This advancement wasn’t driven by Lexus’s own improvements alone, but also by slight declines in the scores of Porsche and Honda, allowing Lexus to surpass them in the overall standings.
Audi demonstrated the most substantial upward movement among car makes this year, jumping six places to secure the sixth position. Conversely, Mini and Acura experienced drops in their rankings, primarily due to decreased predicted reliability scores, highlighting the importance of long-term dependability in Consumer Reports’ evaluations.
Other car makes that experienced notable shifts include Buick, which fell four places to 17th. This decline was attributed to lower road-test scores, with the new Envista model receiving only an adequate rating. Cadillac also tumbled down the rankings, dropping seven places to 21st. This was partly due to the well-below-average reliability predicted for its Lyriq EV, illustrating the challenges some brands face in the electric vehicle market.
It’s important to recognize that some level of fluctuation in rankings is expected each year, particularly among car makes with smaller product lines. Because these rankings are based on brand averages, the performance of each individual model has a more pronounced effect on the overall brand score when fewer models are tested.
For consumers, the key takeaway is to look for car makes that demonstrate consistent high performance, as exemplified by the brands in the top five. Equally important is to be cautious about the lowest-rated car makes. This segment of the ranking consistently includes GMC, Land Rover, Rivian, and Stellantis brands such as Alfa Romeo, Dodge, and Jeep. These brands often struggle in areas of reliability and overall owner satisfaction.
It’s crucial to remember that even within highly-rated car makes, individual models can vary significantly in performance. Therefore, it’s essential to consult the ratings for the specific models you are interested in purchasing. This is particularly true for larger car makes like Toyota, where models like the Camry achieve top scores, while others, such as the Tacoma, receive poorer ratings for road tests and predicted reliability. This variability underscores the importance of detailed model-level research in addition to considering overall car make rankings.
Interestingly, among the 32 car makes evaluated by Consumer Reports this year, only four managed to achieve a recommendation for every single model tested. These brands are Porsche, Infiniti, Mini, and Buick. However, it’s important to interpret this statistic with nuance. These are car makes with relatively small product lines and fewer models tested overall. For instance, Chrysler, the highest-ranked domestic car make at 16th place, owes its score to its limited lineup consisting of the Pacifica, Pacifica Hybrid, and the new Voyager.
Conversely, there are seven car makes that do not have a single model recommended by Consumer Reports. These include Lincoln, Alfa Romeo, Dodge, GMC, Land Rover, Rivian, and Jeep. Notably, these brands also populate the bottom ranks of the overall standings. Prospective buyers should exercise considerable caution and conduct thorough research before considering purchasing vehicles from these manufacturers, given their consistent lower performance across Consumer Reports’ metrics.
To qualify for inclusion in the brand ranking, Consumer Reports requires that at least two current models from a car make be tested. Consequently, several brands were not included in this year’s report due to having too few models evaluated. These excluded car makes are Fiat, Jaguar, Lucid, Maserati, Polestar, and Ram. While their absence from the ranking does not necessarily indicate poor performance, it simply reflects insufficient data for a comprehensive brand-level assessment.
Consumer Reports provides an interactive chart that allows users to view the full brand ranking. Furthermore, the rankings can be segmented into mainstream and luxury groups. This categorization can be particularly helpful as it aligns with typical car shopping considerations, allowing consumers to compare car makes within their respective price and market segments. It’s important to note that the Overall Scores, whether for mainstream or luxury vehicles, are calculated using the same methodology and are directly comparable across both categories, providing a unified and consistent evaluation framework for all car makes.
