I'm not willing to say they are not reliable based solely upon conjecture. Really, I have little trouble believing it. Buicks have for many years been scoring well in quality studies. Why shouldn't they be reliable? Jaguar, I can't say. But, they seem to have made big strides in many areas lately, so why should reliability not be improved as well? Point is, what's the point in blind faith in Toyota and Lexus? Hell, they don't make a single car I would be remotely interested in buying. GM, on the other hand, makes a bunch. Corvette (in all its variations), Camaro, CTS-V, and G8 GXP, to name a few.

 

Remember this study covers all cars by a given make. In this way it favors a brand with few models (such as Buick and Jag). Here's why.

Suppose Toyota has problems with say their new full size truck in '06. That one truck scores badly but sells in large volume. Now let's assume that every other Toyota is 100% trouble free. Well since this is an average of all the cars all it takes is one bad product to drag the rest of the line down. Buick really has a very narrow line up. In '06 they had what 3 models. That means they only have to get three products right. Toyota as a brand has to get what 15 different cars right.

You can see this to some degree with Ford and largely with GM. Some GM cars are really good (the ones which are basically the same as the Buicks ). However others like the maybe the Safari vans (I'm picking on the Vans in this case) do poorly. Net result is Chevy as a brand does only average even though the Impala is quite good and the Safari should be avoided.

This is also why these studies aren't overly helpful. I don't buy the average Toyota or the average Nissan. I buy a specific car and only need to know if that one car is good.

 

The article is actually from AP (Associated Press) and not Yahoo. Yahoo just features articles from different news sources.