Consumer Reports: Top 10 most unreliable car brands

Chris Woodyard | USA TODAY

A day after Consumer Reports magazine listed the best car brands for reliability, the obvious question emerges: Which is the worst?

The answer can be summed up in four little letters: Mini. BMW's fun, youthful bargain brand fell six places from last year when it comes to reliability to end up in the basement.

But the next two worst brands for reliability are ones that have showcased America's manufacturing comeback: Lincoln and Ford. They were bad last year and they are bad again this year. Three other Detroit brands -- Cadillac, Dodge and Jeep -- make up the next worst brands. But the next ones are decidedly foreign -- Nissan, Hyundai and Volkswagen. Then Chrysler's Ram, in 10th place.

How to explain it all? Consumer Reports' testing engineer Jake Fisher wonders if European makers are getting chintzy with their less expensive brands. He says Mini's placement at the bottom of the list is interesting considering that BMW is squarely in the middle when it comes to reliability. Volkswagen fared far worse than also middle-of-the-pack Porsche, its upscale corporate stablemate

"Less-expensive European brands are having more problems," he says. It raises the possibility "they are trying to save money in these vehicles" by scrimping in ways that hurt reliability.

Reached for comment, Mini offered a statement: "When our owners speak we listen and act accordingly. We are currently taking a close look at the recent Consumer Reports findings so that we can better understand what our customers reported, and learn from this information in order to improve the reliability of all Mini vehicles."

When it comes to Ford and its luxury brand, Lincoln, Fisher says the brand appears to have tried to have made too many changes at once. The magazine says of the 31 Ford models in its survey, only one was above average, the F-150 pickup with a 3.7-liter V-6 engine. Ford vehicles took a hit for confusing infotainment systems, its MyFord Touch with Sync, a problem that the company has acknowledged and said is fixing.

Ford says in response to the magazine's ranking: "We listen to all customer input and remain absolutely committed to delivering the best quality with every new vehicle. We have improved the quality of our advanced connectivity technologies by 50% since launch. Customers want advanced infotainment technologies in their vehicles. MyFord Touch and Sync are sold on 93% of our vehicles and more than 70% of customers would recommend the technologies to others."

The list of the worst brands for reliability:

1. Mini

2. Lincoln

3. Ford

4. Cadillac

5. Dodge

6. Jeep

7. Nissan

8. Hyundai

9. Volkswagen

10.Ram