Consumer Reports’ Top 10 Most Reliable Cars: aka, The Toyota Show

A million years ago, as a colleague of ours loves to say, I worked for the Automobile Protection Association, or the APA. It, along with a two publications (one in Quebec and one in Ontario) produced new and used car buying guides.

In these guides, one brand stood head and shoulders above all the others when it came to reliability. That was 20-some years ago. 20-some years later, little has changed.

Of Consumer Reports Top 10 most reliable cars, seven, yes 70%, wear either a Toyota or a Lexus badge. CR’s process is an enormous one where hundreds of thousands of data points are collected from owners and enthusiasts through surveys sent to their members. This is serious stuff.

Here’s the actual list:

Lexus GX

Toyota Prius C

Toyota Prius Prime

Mazda MX-5 Miata

Toyota Corolla

Lexus NX

Toyota Prius

Honda Fit

Kia Sedona

Toyota Highlander

For 20 years I’ve been telling consumers/friends/family and whoever will listen that Toyotas are a safe bet. Sadly, with the possible exception of the Lexus GX, all the others on the list are, um, vanilla. Toyota’s latest products such as the Avalon, Corolla hatchback and Camry are actually good to drive. There might be a Toyota for everyone in the near future.

Too be quite honest, we’re surprised to see the Kia Sedona on the list but we’re not going to doubt CR’s methods or integrity. The MX-5’s been a pillar of reliability since its introduction 30 years ago and the Honda Fit’s always been a brilliant automobile.

The conclusion here is that if you want a reliable automotive mode of transportation, it’s tough to go wrong with a Toyota.