The Worst Car Brand in America

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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The Worst Car Brand in America

© 2011 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited 7... (CC BY 2.0) by Brett Levin

Consumer Reports is out with its latest car brand ranking. The study is influential, widely read, and likely affects many car purchasing decisions. Jeep fell at the bottom of the 34 brands evaluated.

The results were based on a survey of Consumer Reports. Among those things evaluated was reliability, which was based on its tests. It also tests cars for customer satisfaction and safety. Another category is “green,” which is based on engine admissions. (This is the least dependable car brand in America.)

Brands could score between zero and 100. The firm divided brands into two categories: luxury and mainstream. BMW won the luxury category and had the best score among all brands at 82. Subaru was the top mainstream brand with a score of 80, which tied it with luxury brand Porsche.

Jeep finished last with a score of 46. Consumer Reports tested seven of its models. Two other brands, often found at or near the bottom of many car brand evaluations, also did poorly. Land Rover had a score of 50, and Jaguar had a score of 52.

Jeep is among America’s best-known car brands. Jeeps served as military transportation as early as 1941. By 1945, Jeeps were available to the public.

After changing owners several times, Jeep’s parent today is Italian-based car company Stellantis, which also owns U.S.-based Chrysler, Dodge, and Ram brands.

Jeep models span a broad range of prices. The base Compass has an MSRP of $25,300. The top-of-the-line Grand Wagoneer has a base price of $92,540.

Jeep sales could be hurt because of the last-place finish, but it is Jeep management’s fault because quality sells cars.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
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.

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