Highlights From Consumer Reports' 2015 Annual Auto Reliability Survey

Continuing struggles with communications and infotainment systems, as well as problems with recently developed transmission technologies, are the top trouble areas reported in Consumer Reports’ 2015 Annual Auto Survey.

Consumers want their car infotainment systems to be as capable as the latest smartphones. But vehicles have lengthy development and production cycles, which means that car tech often lags behind the rapid-fire release of smartphones and apps. As a result, many infotainment systems end up disappointing consumers in terms of how they function and how reliably they operate.

More troubling is that many new transmissions developed to help meet heightened fuel-economy standards are having some significant problems. That’s happening whether it’s a complex system such as a dual-clutch gearbox, a continuously variable transmission, or one with eight or nine speeds. Many vehicles require repair and replacements because of rough shifting among the gears and slipping CVT belts.

Those trouble areas have resulted in several automakers dropping sharply in our predicted-reliability scores, which are based on subscribers reporting on more than 740,000 vehicles in their garages. But other automakers have seen sharp movement upward.

Our survey is a measure of how reliable a new car you buy today is likely to be, based on the past three model years of problem areas reported by consumers. Note that new-car predicted-reliability scores are separate from our road-test scores, which are based on the performance, comfort, and road manners of the cars we buy.