Consumer Reports has put out its first-ever brand ranking on used vehicles as well as its 10 top picks of the best individual used cars priced under $20,000 — two of which are General Motors models: the 2020 Buick Envision won in the Luxury SUV category and the 2017 Chevrolet Cruze won for small sedan under $10,000. But when it comes to the best overall brand in used cars, Consumer Reports gave the top honor to Lexus, followed by Toyota, both of which had a commanding lead over third-place Mazda. Acura and Honda were near the top, too.
Rounding out the bottom of the list were Ford, GMC, Ram, Jeep, Tesla, Dodge and Chrysler, which was dead last. “Brands like Lexus and Toyota have a history of conservative redesigns, incrementally improving their entire product line, rather than introducing many all-new systems,” Steven Elek, Consumer Reports’ program leader for auto data analytics, said in a statement. “Our data consistently shows over time that new cars from those brands are reliable when new and they continue to be reliable as they age.
” Elek said the lower-ranking brands tend to have much less consistent reliability across their model lines. For example, only the 2018 and 2019 Chevrolet Equinox SUVs have above-average reliability among the six years that model was offered. But, Elek said, the entire 2014 to 2019 Chevrolet Silverado pickup generation proved to have below-average reliability.
“This is why it's best to check the reliability ratings for each model.