This Is the Most Reliable Car in America

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jun 8, 10:30AM EDT

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This Is the Most Reliable Car in America — © Courtesy of Lexus

Americans keep their cars much longer than they did a decade ago. The average lifespan of a car on the road today has hit 12 years.

One reason people keep cars so long is the current cost of new and used cars. Auto inventories are near all-time lows, pushed down by a shortage of parts. Some car companies have had to shutter their assembly lines. Cars often sell above their manufacturer’s suggested retail prices. New car prices and scarcity has caused people to move to lightly used cars. That, in turn, has pushed these prices higher as well. The supply chain problem will not be resolved this year.

Another reason people keep cars longer is that they are built better. It is not unusual for a car to rack up 200,000 miles before it is turned out to pasture.

Several companies do car reliability studies. Among the best known is from research giant J.D. Power. Most of these studies involve the surveys of tens of thousands of people. Some cover cars recently purchased, while others cover cars bought several years ago.
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The primary goals of these studies are to measure safety, durability and repair costs over time. The J.D. Power study is used by many people to make purchase decisions. Another that buyers use regularly is the 10 Most Reliable Cars study from Consumer Reports.

This study involves a review of data on 320,000 cars. The authors write: “We study 17 trouble areas, from nuisances—such as squeaky brakes and broken interior trim—to major bummers, like out-of-warranty transmission repairs or trouble with four-wheel-drive systems.” Unlike many studies, the study predicts future reliability. Vehicles are given a score from 1 to 100.

Only one car received a reliability rating of 100. This was the Lexus GX. The GX is the midsized sport utility vehicle for the model lineup of the luxury division of Toyota. Lexus and Toyota regularly do well on car quality and reliability tests.

While the GX has a base price of $52,700, with extra features that number rises above $70,000. Unlike many SUVs, the GX has seating for seven passengers.
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Click here to read about the best used car brand in America.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.