Car Brands Ranked From Most To Least Satisfying To Own In 2024, According To Consumer Reports

Word of mouth can be a powerful marketing tool. If your customers love your product, they're going to tell other people. Unfortunately for brands that sell sub-par products, if your customers hate what they bought, they'll share that with other people, as well.

That doesn't always mean the best-reviewed car is going to have the highest level of owner satisfaction. Sometimes, a car with a few notable shortcomings ends up satisfying its owners because it was honest about what it was and did an excellent job of meeting customer expectations.

So which automakers offer a lineup of cars that are the most satisfying to own, and which ones are the most disappointing? Our friends at Consumer Reports recently released the results of their annual ownership satisfaction survey. If they didn't get enough responses for a particular brand (such as Aston Martin or Ferrari), it got left out.

In the end, Consumer Reports had enough data to rank 29 brands on ownership satisfaction. Now let's see how your favorite brand performed.

Among Rivian buyers, a full 86 percent of them say they would buy an R1T or R1S again. That gives Rivian the only 5/5 ownership satisfaction score of any brand.

Mini somehow shot up 11 spots this year, coming in second for owner satisfaction. Seventy-seven percent of owners would definitely buy their Mini again.

BMW may not be what it was back in the late '90s and early 2000s, but regardless of how you feel about the current styling, you can't exactly argue with 76 percent of owners saying they'd buy their BMW again.

Porsche may be listed behind BMW, but with 76 percent of owners saying they'd definitely buy their Porsche again, the two German luxury automakers actually tied each other in Consumer Reports' satisfaction survey.

Coming in right behind Porsche is Tesla, with 74 percent of owners saying they would buy again. Gotta love a functional, actually useful nationwide charging network.

Despite widespread claims that the dealer experience would ruin the ownership experience, at 73 percent, Fancy Hyundai is (spoiler alert!) tied with Lexus when it comes to owner satisfaction.

Lexus certainly has Tesla beat when it comes to reliability and longevity, but it loses out ever so slightly when it comes to ownership satisfaction. Only 73 percent of owners would definitely buy the same vehicle again. It's also the last brand to earn a 4/5 ownership satisfaction score.

So far, we've only seen premium brands, but that changes with Subaru. It may have only earned a score of 3/5 from Consumer Reports, but that still works out to 70 percent saying they'd buy again, putting it in eighth place on this list.

Do you like trucks? Because if you don't, you're definitely not getting a Ram. Of the people who did buy a Ram, though, 69 pecent of them say they'd buy it again. Take that, Ford and Chevrolet.

Rounding out the top 10 is Honda, with an identical 69 percent of owners saying they'd definitely buy their car again. Toyota who?

Mini's second-place finish was unexpected, but to be fair, so is Chevrolet's 11th place finish. We guess that most people who buy a Chevy know what they're getting themselves into because 69 percent of owners say they'd definitely buy one again, and they can't all be Corvette owners.

OK, so we threw a little shade at Toyota on the Honda slide, but despite Consumer Reports listing Toyota a few spots behind its mainstream Japanese rival, the same 69 percent of Toyota owners say they would definitely buy their car again.

Hyundai may not rank quite as high as Fancy Hyundai, but with a 13th-place finish, it really isn't doing badly. There are quite a few brands that would kill to have 68 percent of owners say they'd buy the same car again.

Fancy Honda shows up a few slots below Regular Honda, but the difference in their owner satisfaction scores is basically negligible. Honda's owner satisfaction was 69 percent, while Acura's was 68 percent.

Coming in 15th place, Ford has an owner satisfaction score of 67 percent.

With an owner satisfaction score that matches Ford's 67 percent, GMC is the last brand on this list where at least two-thirds of owners say they would definitely buy their vehicle again.

Mazda may be one of our favorite mainstream enthusiast brands, but only 66 percent of current owners told Consumer Reports they would definitely buy their car again.

Volvo comes out swinging with some serious Swedish style, but the actual ownership experience may not be all that those good looks promise. Only 66 percent of owners said they would buy their Volvo again.

Lincoln's doing a lot better than it was as recently as a few years ago, but its ownership satisfaction score is still a couple of points behind parent company Ford's at 65 percent.

Buick may be 20th on this list, but with an ownership satisfaction score of 64 percent, we're a little impressed. Who would have thought that so many people would definitely buy a Buick again after owning one?

It can be easy to think of Hyundai and Kia as the same company, only with different styling. If you go based on ownership satisfaction scores, though, that's not exactly the case. Only 63 percent of Kia owners would buy their car again.

As fantastic as the Cadillac CT4-V Blackwing and CT5-V Blackwing are, not every vehicle in Cadillac's lineup can be a world-beating sport sedan. And apparently some of those cars are a little disappointing, with a mere 61 percent of owners saying they'd buy their car again.

According to Consumer Reports, 60 percent of owners would buy a Chrysler again. How that breaks down between the 300 and the Pacifica isn't clear, but Chrysler does earn the distinction of being the first brand to earn a 2/5 for owner satisfaction.

Mercedes sure makes some fancy cars, but that doesn't necessarily translate to making owners happy. With only 59 percent of buyers saying they'd definitely buy the same car again, Mercedes comes in a disappointing 24th place on this list.

If you felt bad for Mercedes just then, don't worry. It's not alone. Audi also only had 59 percent of current owners respond saying they would buy their car again. And yet, neither is the least satisfying luxury brand to own.

If you don't know for a fact that you're going to use a Jeep to do Jeep things, maybe don't buy a Jeep. Only 58 percent of owners said they'd buy again, making it one of the least satisfying brands to own in the U.S.

Nissan has updated a few of its models recently to make them more competitive in their segments, but clearly, it hasn't been enough to change its close-to-last-place ownership satisfaction score. With only 55 percent saying they would buy their Nissan again, the Japanese automaker only beat out two other brands.

Auto journalists tend to make terrible product planners, but we feel like it should be a giant red flag for the folks at Volkswagen to see Nissan beat them in ownership satisfaction. And not just by a little either. Only 51 percent of Volkswagen owners said they would buy their car again.

So Nissan may not have placed last in terms of owner satisfaction, but Fancy Nissan sure did. Not only did Infiniti come in last place among 29 other automakers, but it was also the only brand to earn a sub-50-percent ownership satisfaction score. A mere 43 percent of Infiniti owners said they would definitely buy their car again. One star.