Letters to the Editor
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American Cars & Reliability
Hey Anonymous, you do realize that those best and worst lists Consumer Reports post don't cover all the cars in the market, right? Those lists only cover a small fraction all all vehicles available. While it's true there are still quite a few lemons pumping out of Detroit, American cars are nevertheless on average quite reliable these days - more reliable than European cars, and more reliable than even Japanese cars were a decade or so ago. That's because all cars are on average more reliable now than they were a few years ago.
In general, reliability is no longer a good reason to avoid purchasing an American car. There may be other reasons - performance, design, fit & finish, gas mileage - but reliability (currently) isn't one of them. As with the imports, it pays to research the reliability of the individual models you're interested in. And if you're buying a new car, I'd argue that reliability isn't a terribly important consideration, assuming it's expected to be average or better - your warranty should take care of most issues, and today's "average" would have been yesteryear's "superstar".
(It's funny to note that Chryslers are now more reliable than Mercedes. Who thought we'd ever live to see that day?)