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Is Your Ford As Reliable As a Toyota?

 
2 1,745 views October 27, 2009

2009 Ford Fusion

2009 Ford Fusion

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Building on our last post here at AllSmallCars.com where we looked at whether the Ford Fiesta and the success or flop possibilities, now we move on to news coming straight out of Consumer Reports. Yes, it is that time again; Consumer Reports has released their annual survey—Consumer Reports’ 2009 Annual Car Reliability Survey. You may have seen TheCarConnection.com coverage a little earlier, which is a good recap of the initial findings (more here).

The big news is that Ford has 90% of its models that have ranked as average or better in the reliability report. This is a good plus for Ford considering that American car companies have long been dinged for not having the fit-and-finish of their German, and particularly, Asian rivals. Of the top 48 models, 36 are from Asian car companies including Toyota with 18 vehicles. So to answer the questions above, in most cases your new Ford vehicle maybe as or more reliable than the comparable Toyota. The exception is the Toyota Prius, which did beat out the widely acclaimed four-cylinder Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan hybrids. Prius aside, the Fusion and Milan did rank higher than any other family sedan.

2010 Lincoln MKZ

2010 Lincoln MKZ

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Unfortunately, Lincoln customers have been bitten by the reliability bug again, or lack there of in this case. The Lincoln brand of cars (cousins to the Ford versions and the luxury models at that) got lesser ratings than their cousins. In fact, the below average rating plaguing the Lincoln brand seems to be centered around the all-wheel drive models including the MKS, MKX, and MKZ. On the flip side of that coin, the two-wheel drive MKZ beat out the Acura TL and Lexus ES, but there is no press on the 2009 Nissan Maxima, which is a direct competitor and new for 2009.

Bottom line—Ford has shown major improvement in reliability, quality and styling. Given that fact, the automotive industry shouldn’t under estimate the “buy American” campaigns coming out of Detroit. The results could be industry saving as seen in the ‘70s and ‘80s for Chrysler, whom I might add is now at Daewoo levels of reliability.

 





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Comments (2)

  1. By  Fathers day Posted: 11/17/2009 3:50am PST

    It is quite obvious that with 2010 Toyota Prius all set to rule the roads with some very good features and being the best fuel economic car Ford has to improve a lot more even after improving so much.
     
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  2. By Rick Posted: 1/2/2010 8:56pm PST

    You may have noticed that some 2010 Toyota priuses have recently been mentioned in the press as having brake problems?
     
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