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How reliable is your car?

Posted August 8, 2008

Think your Honda is more reliable than your grandmother's Mercury? Think again. The watchmen of automotive reliability, among other things, J.D. Power & Associates has released its annual dependability survey, and it holds many surprises for those who haven't checked it since the Carter Administration.

Among them: Overall, you're less likely to have problems with a Mercury than a Toyota. Pontiac owners reported fewer problems than Subaru owners. And Kia is a pretty unreliable car. Well, some weren't as surprising.

Of course, reliability should vary depending on model, how you take care of it and whatnot, but it's still a good gauge to see whether that used car you're picking up will end up vacuuming your wallet out before it's 50,000 miles old.

For fun, I looked up my 2005 PT Cruiser, which promised unremarkable reliability, somewhere in the middle. Powertrain reliability scored just below average, making me glad it still has a 7/70 warranty in effect. In performance, not surprisingly, it scored a meager two stars out of five.

The bottom line is you should never judge American-made cars by the wild stories you've heard from relatives who bought domestics in the '70s. American car czars have realized people do pay attention to reliability, and they're sick of putting their mechanics' kids through Harvard.

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