I’m kvelling, a Yiddish word for bursting with pride but sounds more evocative in my grandmother’s native tongue. My beloved Subaru, the little car company that could and the Starkman Approved wheels of choice, has won the automotive equivalent of the Oscar for the Best Picture of the Year. Mazel Tov to Subaru’s engineers, factory workers, and marketing folks for besting rivals with deeper pockets, and in the case of GM and Ford, obscenely overpaid chief executives whose brands you just buried!
Consumer Reports last week released its annual automotive survey and Subaru was ranked the No. 1 brand overall, scoring 79 points, besting by a tad BMW, which scored 78 points, and Lexus, and Porsche, which scored 77 points. Rounding out the top 10 list of brands were Honda with 75 points, Audi with 74 points, Kia, Hyundai, and Toyota with 73 points, and Infinity and Mini with 71 points.
CR’s best brands list is based on a combination of its road-test scores, safety ratings, predicted reliability, and owner satisfaction data.
Wait, there’s more, as they used to say on those late-night commercials.
CR also ranked Subaru No. 1 for new car reliability, the first time the automaker claimed the top spot in the coveted category. Lexus and Toyota have repeatedly captured the top two positions in recent years, and this year they claimed the second and third spots, while Honda and its luxury nameplate Acura claimed the fourth and fifth spots, Mazda the sixth spot, followed by Audi, BMW, Kia, and Hyundai.
So how did Ford and GM fare, respectively the third and fourth most heavily subsidized companies by U.S. taxpayers, fare in CR’s best brand rankings?
GM’s No. 1 brand overall was Buick, which ranked at No. 17 and Ford ranked at No. 19. Stellantis’s Chrysler brand came in a No. 16.
Ugly ducklings
When it comes to reliability, some of GM’s and Ford’s rankings were particularly ugly.
GM’s Buick, whose third best-selling Envision model is manufactured in China, captured the 11th spot, Ford ranked 13th, Chevrolet 16th, and GMC 20. CR recommends avoiding all GMC products.
Cadillac, a brand once synonymous with excellence, ranked 21 – the second most unreliable brand in CR’s ranking. While Subaru had a 68-brand reliability score, Cadillac scored a pathetic 27. Only Rivian, an upstart electric vehicle company, fared worse.
To liken a product as being the Cadillac of its category now officially means it stinks!
CR ranked the EV Cadillac Lyriq the least reliable electric SUV and also slammed GM’s EV Chevy Blazer, which the company manufactures in Mexico and is still eligible for a Biden/Harris administration $7,500 tax rebate. CR said the Lyriq and Blazer suffer from problems with the EV battery, electrical accessories, the climate system, in-car electronics, and other components.
CR ranked the hybrid model of Ford’s flagship F-150 pickup truck the most unreliable of any vehicle the publication ranks, a distinction the vehicle also held in 2022. CR cited annoying issues like squeaky brakes and broken interior trim pieces and crippling problems like out-of-warranty engine, transmission, and EV problems.
Ford’s electric version of the F-150 also was ranked among the 10 most unreliable vehicles, as was the hybrid version of the Ford Escape. GM’s gas guzzling GMC Canyon and Chevy Colorado pickups also were ranked among the most unreliable vehicles. CR said the Canyon and Colorado are plagued with engine, transmission, in-car electronics, and other problems.
MAGA: Honda and Toyota!
Despite their Japanese pedigrees, Toyota and Honda are the most MAGA automakers.
Cars.com every year publishes its rankings of the most American-made vehicles. The rankings aren’t based solely on where a vehicle is manufactured, but incorporate other critical considerations such as parts content, engine and transmission origin, and U.S. manufacturing workforce. Honda and its luxury Acura brand captured nine of the top 20 spots, Toyota and its luxury Lexus division captured four. GM and Ford weren’t represented in the top 20 spots.
Moreover, some of Toyota’s popular vehicles in the U.S. are entirely designed and engineered in Michigan, including its best-selling Camry, and the Tacoma and Tundra pickups.
Unabashed Subaru loyalist
I’m an unabashed Subaru loyalist, or perhaps more accurately a cultist, as the automaker’s exuberant owners might be characterized.
My Michigan friend Bethann, whose father was a Ford factory supervisor and knows a lot about cars, turned me on to Subaru nearly nine years ago. I had an issue with my first Subaru Outback, one that only a perfectionist would notice and complain about, but the company was respectful of my quirky ways and more than did right by me. I’d likely still be driving my first Subaru, but local Los Angeles dealers enticed me with sweetheart lease offers to upgrade to newer Outback models with improved safety features and lower monthly costs.
More than a year ago, I purchased my 2020 Outback after the lease expired because it was worth more than $8,000 its residual lease value and I relished the opportunity to screw over Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. My grandmother would say I shepped lots of nachas fund di Subaru, which means leasing and driving the vehicle have given me considerable pleasure and joy.
To car enthusiasts who place a premium on being able to accelerate from 0 to 60 in nanoseconds or those demanding luxurious interiors bedecked in rich Corinthian leathers, Subarus are decidedly BORING. Subarus are utilitarian vehicles, known for their practicality, reliability, and all-wheel-drive handling, a boon if you’re driving on a road with intermittent snow and ice. I live in Los Angeles, so opportunities to experience the thrill of going to 60 from a standing start faster than a blink of the eye are virtually nonexistent.
Safety 1st
Subarus come with the latest and greatest technology where it matters most to me and the company’s other brand loyalists. Subaru places a premium on safety, and in addition to acing NHTSA crash tests, other safety technologies are standard equipment, such as collison avoidance breaking, lane departure and sway warning, and automatic emergency steering. My insurance premiums declined with every new Subaru I leased, validating that insurance companies see real safety value in these features.
Subaru was an early adopter of Apple Car Play, which was problem plagued when it was first introduced. When the infotainment system in my 2016 Subaru became completely unresponsive and nonfunctional, the company gave me a three-row Ascent SUV to drive, which I loved and didn’t care that it took nearly two months until my car’s infotainment system was replaced and my car returned.
Subaru loves pets!
It isn’t just the quality of Subaru’s vehicles that generates such strong brand loyalty. Some 70 percent of Subaru owners have pets, of which 50 percent are dogs. Subaru’s Outback and Forester consistently rank among the best vehicles for dog owners.
Subaru is a major supporter of dog shelters and adoptions, having distributed $766,000 to animal shelters in the U.S. and providing other support. Whereas other companies solely flaunt their vehicles at auto shows, Subaru uses them as opportunities to feature and promote pet adoptions.
For more than a decade, Subaru has featured dogs in its “Dog Tested. Dog Approved” advertising campaign featuring The Barkleys, adorable Golden and Labrador Retrievers pursuing various scenarios such as taking driving lessons or visiting a doggy-run car wash. Among my favorite Subaru YouTube videos is the accompanying one featuring Sarah Schwaiger and Elizabeth Smith, two of the trainers responsible for the dogs featured in Subaru’s commercials.
The ultimate test of Shwaiger’s and Smith’s talents would be if they could get my English Golden, Ben Jr., to obey their commands.
Subaru Love Promise®
The Subaru Love Promise® is the company’s vision to show love and respect to all people at every interaction with Subaru. “Through our five core pillars — Environment, Health, Education, Pets, and Community — and the Subaru Share the Love® Event, we aim to create change in the areas we and our owners care about the most,” the company says.
Notice that Subaru doesn’t highlight that obligatory commitment to support gay rights. Subaru was supporting gay communities when D E I were three random letters in the alphabet.
In the 1990s, Subaru discovered that lesbians were among the niche groups who appreciated the company’s vehicles. The company embraced the constituency, advertising in publications that targeted lesbian readers.
As reported by Slate, the “Lesbaru” connection was cemented when Subaru featured out tennis player Martina Navratilova in a 2001 campaign. Three years later, the company supported another lesbian tennis player: Dana Fairbanks of Showtime’s The L Word. When the fictional Fairbanks was forced out of the closet, the show’s storyline had Subaru rolling out a campaign with the slogan, “Get Out. And Stay Out.”
The Human Rights Campaign, an organization tied to Obama and the Democrat party that ranks a company’s commitment to supporting gay and lesbian employees, in 2022 gave Subaru a perfect score for its efforts. Subaru, whose U.S. headquarters is in Camden, NJ, in 2020 garnered the Beyond the Glass Ceiling Company of the Year Award from the National Association of Women Business Owners.
Old school marketing
Major companies these days are entrusting their brands to hotshot MBAs from Ivy League schools, often with disastrous results. Alissa Gordon Heinerscheid, a Wharton MBA grad with an undergraduate Harvard degree, was reportedly responsible for Bud Light’s controversial partnership with TikTok transgender sensation Dylan Mulvaney. Jaguar’s chief marketing officer is Charlotte Blank, who has a Harvard MBA and presumably played a role in the company’s widely mocked unveiling of a new line of electric vehicles.
Subaru’s head of U.S. marketing is Alan Bethke, who has been with the company for more than two decades. He joined the company in 2003 as a district sales manager after sales and marketing stints at Suzuki Motor and Maytag Appliances, whose lonely repairman campaign was among the most brilliant advertising campaigns of all time.
Bethke, who graduated Magna Cum Laude with an MBA from Rutgers School of Business – Camden and holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Penn State University, is clearly old school in believing that a company’s commercial characters should be universally likeable and make people feel good about its products.
The New York Times reported that Donald Trump has asked GM to provide about 250 vehicles for V.I.P.s during the inauguration, and the company intends to support the event “in a big way.” If Trump is serious about making America great again, the only vehicles he should allow at his inauguration are the most American-made, which would be Toyotas, Hondas, and Teslas.
GM and Ford represent America’s decline, and the respective $28 million and $27 million paid to CEOs Mary Barra and Jim Farley last year were egregious examples of U.S. executive greed and excessive pay for poor leadership. Trump wants foreign manufacturers to build their cars in the U.S., which Subaru already does. Subaru’s Outback, Legacy, Ascent, and Crosstrek models are built in Indiana and the company plans to begin building electric vehicles in the U.S. beginning in 2027.
Meanwhile, GM plans to build its Cadillac Optiq in Mexico, where under CEO Barra GM became that country’s biggest vehicle manufacturer, despite being bailed out by U.S. taxpayers. Barra had planned to move even more U.S. jobs to Mexico, but Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm before the presidential election agreed to donate $500 million in taxpayer funds to GM so that the automaker could electrify an existing plant in Lansing, MI.
Under Biden administration rule, every day is Christmas for GM and Ford.