Having a certain affinity for one’s vehicle isn’t at all uncommon, whether that vehicle is a brand-new muscle car or a rust-clad jalopy that tends not to start until the second or third try. As Queen’s Robert Taylor famously sung, “I’m in love with my car / got to feel for my automobile.”
Everyone remembers their first car fondly, even if it was just a run-of-the-mill 15-year-old, road-worn sedan. But which automakers produce the most cherished vehicles? Which cars leave drivers so satisfied that they buy from the same brand again and again?
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Are the best-loved cars also the most reliable?
Interestingly, owner satisfaction doesn’t always go hand in hand with reliability and performance, as one might expect. Some of the best-loved car models are also some of the least dependable, like the all-electric Rivian R1T pickup, which ranked 2nd overall in owner satisfaction but was also deemed the 5th-least-reliable vehicle overall by Consumer Reports.
Here, we leave specific models behind and instead delve into which automakers have the most satisfied customers overall, across all of their models.
Related: The 10 cars with the most satisfied owners, according to Consumer Reports
How does Consumer Reports measure owner satisfaction?
Consumer Reports, a legacy consumer advocacy nonprofit that has been testing vehicles and surveying car owners for nearly a century, compiles owner satisfaction data via its annual survey, which is sent to the organization's millions of members. The survey asks members myriad questions about their vehicle(s), including how likely they would be to purchase their current vehicle again given the chance to go back in time.
The percentage of owners who answer “yes” to this question provides each car model’s owner satisfaction score. These percentages are then averaged across all of an automaker’s models to yield a composite owner satisfaction score for a car brand at large.
What auto brands do drivers love the most according to Consumer Reports?
Here are the top 15 most loved car brands according to Consumer Reports.
Also included is each brand’s general popularity score, as measured by YouGov. YouGov’s study asked participants whether they had a positive opinion of each car maker, regardless of whether they owned or drove a car by that maker.
1. Rivian
- Consumer Reports owner satisfaction score: 86%
- YouGov popularity score: 55th place (27%)
- Established: 2009
- Based in: United States
2. Mini
- Consumer Reports owner satisfaction score: 77%
- YouGov popularity score: 40th place (43%)
- Established: 1969
- Based in: United Kingdom
3. BMW
- Consumer Reports owner satisfaction score: 76%
- YouGov popularity score: 3rd place (66%)
- Established: 1916
- Based in: Germany
4. Porsche
- Consumer Reports owner satisfaction score: 76%
- YouGov popularity score: 16th place (57%)
- Established: 1931
- Based in: Germany
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5. Tesla
- Consumer Reports owner satisfaction score: 74%
- YouGov popularity score: 44th place (38%)
- Established: 2003
- Based in: United States
Damian B Oh, CC-BY-SA-4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
6. Genesis
- Consumer Reports owner satisfaction score: 73%
- YouGov popularity score: 48th place (36%)
- Established: 2015
- Based in: South Korea
7. Lexus
- Consumer Reports owner satisfaction score: 73%
- YouGov popularity score: 5th place (63%)
- Established: 1989
- Based in: Japan
8. Subaru
- Consumer Reports owner satisfaction score: 70%
- YouGov popularity score: 7th place (63%)
- Established: 1953
- Based in: Japan
Related: The 10 best electric SUVs, according to Consumer Reports data
9. Ram
- Consumer Reports owner satisfaction score: 69%
- YouGov popularity score: 32nd place (51%)
- Established: 2010
- Based in: United States
10. Honda
- Consumer Reports owner satisfaction score: 69%
- YouGov popularity score: 2nd place (72%)
- Established: 1946
- Based in: Japan
The takeaway
Rivian, one of the newest automakers on this list (Genesis is newer but is the luxury brand of Hyundai), took the top spot by a significant margin, with 86% of owners saying they’d buy a Rivian again if given the opportunity. This is interesting, as Consumer Reports ranked Rivian 28th out of 30 in terms of reliability, meaning that Rivian vehicles are far more unreliable than other cars. Nevertheless, their owners apparently love them.
Another takeaway from the list above is that owner satisfaction doesn’t seem to correlate with automaker popularity among the general public. For instance, 74% of Tesla owners would buy from the brand again, while only 34% of the public have a positive attitude toward the electric automaker.
Interestingly, BMW's owner satisfaction rating actually matched its popularity among the general public, with the German automaker taking third place in both measures.
