Toyota, Lexus Make Consumer Reports' Picks for 2010

(AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

Consumer Reports revealed its annual listing of Top Picks for cars today, with models chosen on the basis of performance, reliability, and safety. Among nine different brands named was Toyota and Lexus (Toyota's luxury car division).

The Toyota Prius was the Top Pick for Green cars for the seventh consecutive year, while the Lexus LS460L was Consumer Reports' pick for Best Overall vehicle.

Sales of the Toyota Highlander and RAV4 had been halted at the time of publication. Consumer Reports has suspended its recommendation for both vehicles, and removed them from contention in the Small and Family SUV category.

Six new car models entered the Top Picks this year: The Mazda5 (Family Hauler), Nissan Altima (Family Sedan), Subaru Forester (Small SUV), Volkswagen GTI (Sporty Car), and Chevrolet's Traverse (Family SUV) and Silverado (Pickup truck).

Also named were the Hyundai Elantra SE (Small Sedan) and Infiniti G37 (Sport Sedan).

For the first time since 1998 no Honda model was selected. Last year's Top Pick for Family Sedan was the Accord.

The new Top Picks, as seen in the magazine's April 2010 Auto Issue, were announced at a Washington Automotive Press Association press conference in Washington, D.C.

Consumer Reports Names Six New Top Pick Cars for 2010 (2.23.10)

Rik Paul, Consumer Reports' automotive editor, said the diversity of this year's Top Picks reflects the industry's competitiveness. "Today's car buyers have more choices than ever when looking for good all-around cars."

The Top Picks are based on evaluations conducted by Consumers Union at its Auto Test Center; reliability results (based on annual surveys conducted of Consumer Reports' subscribers); and on government and industry safety tests.


For more info:
consumerreports.org

[mrpushrod]

Jon Linkov was on ABC?s Good Morning LIES ON CAMERA. I QUOTE LEXUS LS460L goes through avoidance maneuver very well. SEE VIDEO -- CONSUMER REPORTS A FRAUD: Consumer Reports top rated Lexus LS 460L posts the second poorest speed in Consumer Reports avoidance avoidance maneuver. I QUOTE CONSUMER REPORTS TEST DESCRIPTION ************** A vehicle with good braking and emergency handling can help you avoid an accident. Here are the highs and lows in our dry braking test (from 60 mph) and AVAIDANCE MANUEVER WHICH HELPS US JUDGE HOW CAPABLE A VEHICLE IS WHEN A DRIVER IS TRYING TO STER AROUND AN OBSTICLE; THE HIGHER ITS SPEED, THE BETTER ***************
After highly recommending the dangerous Toyota Corolla which may be recalled for light and vague steering (Consumer Reports words), Consumer Reports Dare to TOP RATE the Lexus LS460 which posted the lowest speeds in CRs AVOIDANCE MANUEVER

TEST RESULTS: Lincoln Town Car (dated 30 year old design) 47.5MPH Lexus LS460 L 48.5 Mercury Grand Marquis 50MPH (dated 30 year old design), Toyota Avalon 50MPH Kia Amanita.

Consumer Reports DARE rate the LEXUS LS460L a top score of 99 out of a 100. Did I mention, this is the same magazine that highly rated the Corolla? Safety takes a back seat to selling magazines at Consumer Reports.
http://blogs.consumerreports.org/cars/2010/02/consumer-reports-top-picks-on-good-morning-america.html

[mrpushrod]

Consumer Reports suckered many of their subscribers into purchasing the Corolla with dangerous handling and the Prius bum brakes. They pushed Toyota?s even though they were well aware of Toyota?s woes (rotted brake lines, rotted frames, bad ball joints and failing camshaft, sticking gas pedals, poorly designed gas pedals, engine sludge issues dangerous engine hesitations, poor accident avoidance speeds, an electronic module that can cause unexplained acceleration, faulty brakes and much more). They did not stop recommending Toyotas until Toyota had a recall. LETS SEND CONSUMER REPORTS A MESSAGE. ****** PLEASE JOIN ME IN *** CANCELING YOUR CONSUMER REPORTS SUBSCRIPTION THIS APRIL. ****

[mrpushrod]

NEWS FLASH -- CONSUMER REPORTS A FRAUD ? Consumer Reports IGNORES SAFTEY IN THEIR GEM BRAND TOYOTA: The biased magazine Consumer Reports was well aware of the safety issues in the Toyota Corolla. I quote Consumer Reports Corolla review: ?THE STEERING IS A BIT LIGHT AND RATHER VAGUE?. Consumer Reports is a biased magazine that caters to the demographics of their customers in order to sell more magazines. The Corolla finished in sixth place from the top out of 14 vehicles. Consumer Reports cares more about their bottom line than the safety of their customers.

[mrpushrod]

There is an American Company that cares less about the safety of their customers than Toyota (if you can believe that). Consumer Reports (a biased magazine) built their reputation and customer base by steering Americans away from domestic autos. For years now they have recommended Toyota?s regardless of performance and safety. They built almost a cult following customer base that blindly believed the big three (Toyota, Honda & Nissan) were the only manufacturer that produced safe reliable vehicles. Consumer Reports fed their cult following to sell more magazines. They trashed Ford, GM & Chrysler every opportunity and put Toyota on a pedestal. If you read CRs forums you would understand this is exactly what CR?s customer base (cult) wanted to hear. Consumer Reports has long ignored the safety of Toyota vehicles. For example: CR?s two highest scoring (score derived by auto testers) vehicles (Lexus LS460 & Toyota Avalon) actually posted the lowest scores on CR?s accident avoidance test. The LS460 actually obtained CRs highest test score @ 99 out of a 100 yet it is not capable of avoiding an accident. To add further insult to the domestics, CR?s reliability surveys were only sent to CRs customer base and not a random audience like reputable surveys such as J. D. Powers. CR?s survey leads the witness. Therefore CRs reliability survey data does not correlate with data taken from random surveys. Consumer Reports auto testers were well aware of Toyota?s safety issues for years now. They ignored the data and recommended every single Toyota product until days after Toyota issued the recall and stopped selling vehicles. CR is well aware of Toyota?s woes (Tundra is plagued with rotted brakelines, rotted frames, bad ball joints and failing camshaft, sticking gas pedals, poorly designed gas pedals, engine sludge issues dangerous engine hesitations, poor accident avoidance speeds, an electronic module that can cause unexplained acceleration, faulty brakes and much more). We should hold CR liable for the deaths since they recommended Toyota?s to their customers even though they knew about their safety issues for years now.

[zippiez]

Ver-r-ry interesting!
Does this mean Toyota's ratings head for the toilet next year?

[mkaresh]

Few people seem to realize that, every year, the "new" Auto Issue is based on data that is already nearly a year old. The ratings in it have been out since the previous October. They are not new. Yet the press treats them as news anyway.

For reliability stats based on much more recent data and that include actual repair frequencies, not just dots, check out TrueDelta:

http://www.truedelta.com/car-reliability.php

After all, do you want to know how reliable a car has been lately, or how reliable it was a year ago, when it was a year newer?