The American organization Consumer Reports tests, evaluates and compares products from daily life and presents the results in a magazine issued each month. The online edition of Consumer Reports announced the results of the “Which brands make the best cars?” survey in advance: Audi is the overall winner, followed by Subaru (second place) and Lexus in third place.
The rankings are performed in four different categories: road test, reliability, customer satisfaction and safety. Data from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are incorporated here. During the test drives, at least 2,000 miles are driven in each model. The customer satisfaction category considers feedback from more than 230,000 drivers; in the reliability section, data is analyzed from about 740,000 cars up to 15 years old.