John O'Dell, Contributor
Honda Motor Co. was the big winner with five models among the 10 highest-rated new passenger vehicles.
AMERICAN CAR makers are absent for the first time from Consumer Reports' annual survey.
Detroit's automakers were shut out Wednesday as Consumer Reports awarded all top 10 new-car picks to Japanese brands in its annual auto issue.
It marked the first time since the magazine began its "top picks" nine years ago that no American vehicle made the list.
This year's rankings emphasised safety more than in the past.
BIG WINNER
Honda Motor Co., which offers more standard safety
features than most automakers, was the big winner with five models among the 10 highest-rated new passenger vehicles.
The 2006 Honda Civic won for top small sedan, the Accord for best family sedan, the Acura TL in the upscale sedan category, the Honda Odyssey for best minivan and the new Honda Ridgeline for the top pickup truck.
Toyota Motor Corp. and Subaru each had two models in the top 10 Toyota's were both gasoline-electric hybrids while Nissan Motor Co.'s Infiniti
luxury brand captured one slot.
Consumer Reports rates new cars and trucks based on federal and insurance industry crash tests, reader reliability surveys and the results of more than 50 road and lab tests performed by the magazine. The April auto issue is the magazine's most popular and its rankings are considered influential with buyers.
Japanese brands also
dominated the magazine's
vehicle reliability survey, based on responses from subscribers on more than a million vehicles from the 1998 through 2005 model years. Toyota's Lexus luxury brand was No. 1, with the Honda, Toyota, Mitsubishi and Subaru brands rounding out the top five. Only one American brand, Ford Motor Co.'s Mercury, made the reliability list, placing eighth.
In a conference call, Consumer Reports automotive test director David Champion said most problems in cars were traced to electronics. He
suggested that Japan's leadership in the electronics industry was
a principal reason Japanese cars were so reliable.
The magazine has found that Toyota and Honda vehicles
consistently have fewer problems as they age than those of other manufacturers, Champion said. An 8-year-old Toyota "is about as reliable as a 3-year-old Ford," he said.
Among American brands, Ford "consistently" has lower problem rates for older vehicles than do General Motors Corp. and DaimlerChrysler's Chrysler Group, Champion said.
Of the 36 major brands
surveyed, German automaker Porsche was the least reliable, with Hummer, Land Rover, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz filling out the bottom five.
PLAYING CATCH UP
American automakers have narrowed the dependability gap with the Japanese, Champion said. But cash-strapped American companies aren't redesigning their vehicles
frequently enough to keep
pace with Japanese rivals in comfort, performance, handling and safety, he said.
Last year, the Ford Focus was the only American car on the top 10 list for new models. But the Focus was bumped as the best small car because its 5-year-old design doesn't have side-curtain air bags to provide extra head protection in crash tests developed by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
The Focus was displaced by the redesigned Honda Civic, which has side-curtain air bags as standard equipment. The Focus won't offer the extra air bags until its next redesign, expected in 2008.
TOP PICKS
Many of the magazine's top picks for new models are repeats from previous years, but Consumer Reports picked the Honda Ridgeline as the best pickup although it has less towing capacity than other big pickups and doesn't offer a V-8 engine. The magazine's testers liked the Ridgeline's car-like ride and handling.
"We evaluate for how they drive not in terms of work or heavy-duty off-road capability," Consumer Reports' auto editor Rik Paul said.
The magazine also chose Toyota's hybrid Highlander sport utility and Prius sedan as top picks although they cost more to own and operate than comparable gasoline-powered models.
"We don't factor in price," Paul said.
In a separate report, the
magazine said that even if
gasolene were to cost US$4 a gallon, it would take more than
a decade for a fuel-efficient hybrid vehicle to pay for itself
in gasolene savings.
For the first five years of
ownership, the "price premium" for 2006 hybrids ranges from $3,700 for the Honda Civic hybrid versus the similar
Civic EX gasoline model, to US$13,300 for the Highlander all-wheel-drive hybrid versus
the standard model.
The magazine also found that Japanese and South Korean brands had 12 problems per
100 vehicles, the same rate as last year, American brands had 18 problems per 100 vehicles,
up from 17, and European
brands had 21 problems per
100 vehicles, unchanged from the last study.
