Best Car Brands 2014 Named

Lexus makes the best cars, according to Consumer Reports.

Best Car Brands 2014 Named

For the second consecutive year, Toyota's luxury brand garnered the highest score in the magazine's Car Brand Score Cards.

Consumer Reports noted that Lexus is the only brand to achieve an excellent overall reliability score, with the following six makes earning a very good rating. It added that only Cadillac, Dodge, and Ford had a below average reliability score.

The brands were scored "using an equally weighted composite of our road-test and reliability scores for each of its models that we’ve tested and for which our subscribers have provided reliability data in our Annual Auto Survey."

The magazine said that in order to be rated, each brand needs at least three models for which it has test and reliability data.

"This year we don’t have report cards for Fiat, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lincoln, Mini, Mitsubishi, Porsche, Ram, Scion, Smart, and Tesla because we have too few currently tested models from those makes or we lack sufficient reliability data to make a valid comparison," it said.

The scores of the car brands included this year are as follows:

1. Lexus - 79	9. Mercedez-Benz - 68	17. Volkswagen - 59
2. Acura - 75	10. BMW - 66	18. Nissan - 59
3. Audi - 74	11. Volvo - 66	19. Chevrolet - 56
4. Subaru - 72	12. Buick - 63	20. Cadillac - 54
5. Toyota - 72	13. GMC - 63	21. Dodge - 53
6. Mazda - 71	14. Chrysler - 62	22. Ford - 50
7. Honda - 70	15. Kia - 61	23. Jeep - 50
8. Infiniti - 69	16. Hyundai - 60

More details about Consumer Reports' Car Brand Score Cards will be available in the magazine's annual automotive issue that goes on sale in March.