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"Ford is doing exceptionally well," David Champion, the senior director of Consumer Reports' Auto Test Center, said during a luncheon for the Automotive Press Association at the Detroit Athletic Club.
"Nearly all Fords are average or above. ... They are extremely close to Toyota and Honda."
He added that Ford's improvement is not a flash in the pan.
"This has been a systematic, structural change that we've seen within Ford," he said. "If they had vehicles that were more exciting to buy they might be in a better place."
But the report was not so rosy for the other Detroit automakers.
General Motors Corp.'s Cadillac CTS is below average in its first year, for example. At Chrysler LLC, the Chrysler Town & Country was deemed "poor" and the Chrysler Sebring Convertible earned the "worst predicted reliability for 2009."
Champion added that Chrysler's deteriorating reliability was especially surprising, given that many of its new products were redesigns. He called the company's performance "mediocre at best."
Consumer Reports unveiled its reliability ratings for the U.S. automotive lineup during the event.
"Overall, the Japanese manufacturers are still the most reliable," Champion said, noting that Toyota's reliability has bounced back after a small dip. "All models have average or better reliability."
Consumer Reports' ratings are based on a survey of approximately 1.4 million online and print subscribers to Consumer Reports magazine, and are closely watched by automakers because of their influence on consumers.
The magazine also does more than 50 different tests on vehicles and examines test-crash data from the government and insurance agencies.
"We got information on 2,800 vehicles going back to 1998," Champion said. "We believe it's the largest survey of its kind."
One of the more interesting findings for these economically trying times:
"Fuel-efficient models are also the most reliable," he said.
That includes hybrids, despite concerns that there might be issues with batteries and other aspects of the new technology.
"We haven't actually seen that," Champion said. "They've all get better reliability than their regular counterparts. They seem to be very reliable."
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