- Subaru ranks as the most reliable brand for the first time in Consumer Reports’s annual ratings
- Toyota fell due to new powertrains in new vehicles
- Rivian ranked last in reliability, though 15 other brands weren’t rated at all
Toyota or its luxury brand Lexus no longer top the most reliable brand rankings, according to an annual report published Thursday by Consumer Reports.
Subaru now ranks as the most reliable car brand. It’s the first time the small Japanese automaker has claimed the top spot historically dominated by Toyota, which has dominated the sales charts with vehicles such as the bestselling Toyota RAV4.
The annual survey gathers data from owners as well as Consumer Reports internal testing on hundreds of thousands of vehicles spanning the 2000 to 2024 model years. The survey addresses 20 possible pain points experienced by owners in the previous 12 months, ranging from transmission and electric motor issues to climate controls and in-car electronics such as touchscreen interfaces and infotainment systems, long a point of frustration for many new car owners.
Subaru appears to have adopted what kept Toyota and Lexus at the top of the reliability rankings for at least the past five years, by making incremental updates with proven parts shared across the lineup. Subaru’s redesigned vehicles, such as in the 2025 Subaru Forester, take a conservative approach, which had earned Toyota criticism until its recent brand overhaul.
Starting with the Toyota Tundra pickup truck that was redesigned for 2022, Toyota has redesigned nearly every vehicle in its vast lineup of sedans, crossover SUVs, trucks, and sports coupes, culminating with the 2025 Toyota 4Runner SUV, which was last redesigned in 2010. So much has changed in 15 years.
Many of the SUV and truck redesigns in Toyota’s family feature more efficient, smaller displacement turbo and hybrid engines in place of emissions-endangered V-8s that had powered the lineup for so long. New cars usually mean new problems.
Subaru has stuck almost stubbornly with its flat-4 boxer engine in vehicles such as the Subaru Crosstrek, and lacks any electrification, except for the Subaru Solterra electric crossover built in partnership with Toyota.
To assess a brand’s overall reliability, Consumer Reports factors in the reported problems for each specific model in a brand’s lineup. The Solterra is the lone Subaru with a below-average score for predicted reliability. The predicted reliability is an average score of the past three years of a model as long as it wasn’t redesigned.
Below-average ratings for the Tundra, the new Tacoma midsize pickup truck, as well as the bZ4X EV that’s related to the Solterra, sunk Toyota’s overall reliability rating.
“While brand rankings can guide you to the showroom, it is critical to look at reliability for specific models before making a purchase decision,” said Jake Fisher, senior director of Consumer Reports’ Auto Test Center. “Even within high-ranking companies, there can be significant variation in reliability.”
The new Tundra has been beset by problems, with 10 recalls since the 2022 model launched. Those problems resulted with Toyota making the costly decision in July to replace more than 100,000 twin-turbo 3.5-liter V-6 engines in the 2022-2023 Tundra and Lexus LX. Consumer Reports acknowledged that recalls don’t harm a brand in its reliability ratings, though persistent problems do.
Despite the recent hiccups in its new SUV and truck lineup, Toyota still ranked third and Lexus second as the most reliable out of 22 brands. Fifteen brands, ranging from Ram to Porsche, weren’t ranked due to insufficient data.
Consumer Reports 2025 brand reliability rankings
Overall, Asian brands, followed by German brands, fared far better in reliability than domestic automakers. Buick, which follows Subaru’s and Toyota’s conservative and incremental approach to new models, was the highest ranking domestic badge (though half of its models are made in Asia) at 11th, smack dab in the middle of the rankings.
Mazda slipped this year to sixth due to more problems with the CX-90 plug-in hybrid, and Hyundai slipped to 10th for continued problems with its Ioniq 5 electric crossover and transmission issues with the Santa Cruz small pickup, according to Consumer Reports.
Rivian rated last for reliability due to reported problems with the R1T pickup truck, ranging from paint & trim to EV charging systems.