Okay, Japanese automakers dominate the Consumer Reports survey which tests vehicle quality and US automakers are demanding an endless series of bailouts to save them from collapse.
Is there a connection between the two? As in, maybe GM should ask itself if it should have built better cars over the last 25 years instead of consistently losing market share to the Japanese competition (and now the Korean too) and bleeding an insane 30.9 billion dollars in 2008.
So, who is topping the charts on reliability and quality? Well, in terms of the best overall points rating, it was Honda, which scored 78 points as the top brand. Second was Subaru with 75 and third was Toyota with 74.
But Toyota came away with some trophies too. Its Lexus LS 460L scored 99 out of 100 as the best rated vehicle overall.
Toyota also took 5 of the top 10 picks with the RAV4, Sienna, Highlander and Prius topping their vehicle categories along with the aforementioned LS 460L from Lexus, Toyota's premium brand.
Absent, ever so sadly absent, of the top rated automakers were the Detroit Big 3.
GM took the only US spot in the top 10 with the Chevy Avalanche winning the Consumer Reports Oscar for best pick up. And GM and Chrysler were at the bottom of the total list of 15 automakers surveyed, with Chrysler coming in dead last and GM at number 14. Ford scored a slightly better 12th place overall.
GM's total rating was 57 and only 17 percent of its vehicles were recommended by Consumer Reports, as opposed to 89 percent for Toyota, 95 percent for Honda, and an amazing 100 percent of all Subaru models coming with a Consumer Reports recommendation sticker.
GM and Chrysler have requested additional bailouts totaling more than 21 billion dollars on top of the close to 20 billion they have already received. They don't make it easy to argue why they should get more.
