Charles E. Wilson , the president of General Motors and later U.S. Secretary of Defense, is attributed with the phrase “As GM goes, so goes the nation”. (1953)
Here’s a visual of car brand reliability in 2026.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-the-most-reliable-car-brands-in-2026/
GMC is ranked 23 out of 26 with a reliability score of 31 out of 100. (The highest is Toyota with 66.)
GM stock has done very well since the tariffs on foreign imports were imposed in 2024.
Wendy
I am no longer a TSLA long (sold out years ago), but it is impressive that they made such a dramatic move up that it was highlighted in the chart.
Kinda surprised about BMW (a manager at my former employer seemed to have to take his in fairly regularly), but it is what it is.
Also surprised that 66 was the highest. In school, that would be a D (or D+, if one was feeling generous). I wonder what that says about the automotive sector as a whole.
This is America. You can be mediocre and succeed.
You just need to be slightly less mediocre than your competitors.
intercst
I did appreciate your Top Five Chinese EV coming to Canada.
Huawei top end EVs are making GM look like something created in Orville & Wilbur’s garage. Even compared to Europe’s best: Huawei Maextro S800 EV at $140,000 easily outperforms the Maybach S 680 that sells for $250,000. Even at the lower models, Huawei is producing EVs that can charge from 10% to 80% in less than 15min. Of course, without the 100% American tariff Tesla would be dead in the water.
This truly is America
Sandy Munro pointed out the reason, constant innovation instead of cyclical model changes which also applies to Toyota. My Toyota Corollas were my longest lasting cars.
The Captain
This is of course relative to other brands of the same year.
I’ve had Audi cars since the 1990’s. My current car (petrol Q5) is less reliable than my previous Q5 and not a patch of the ‘bomb proof’ cars Audi produced twenty years ago.
It appears to me that cars generally are now less reliable than they were previously. Cannot find any details/figures on this.
For some reason, the YouTube algorithm has tossed SUV/Truck reviews at me. Not that I’m in the market, my latest urban assault vehicle is only 8 years old with 70k miles. It seems like the common denominator for problems (any brand, including Toyota) is the abundance of electronics. Especially in EV and Hybrids. Seems like many components are not really “road worthy” - great in lab, suck in life. Then all the software issues, some vehicles would get an update and become a lawn ornament.
Makes me want to go find an old truck from the 60s/70s.
I am a big fan of EV on obvious technical advantages — mostly thermodynamic but also simplicity,
BUT
my household in Mexico owns three cars, all internal combustion dinosaurs bought for cheap cheap cheap: one (newish with only 40K kms) VW manual transmission, and two Renaults (!) both with over 100k kms. I am rather fond of the VW, maybe because I learned to drive seated in its great great great granddaddy a 1955 Bug. The Renaults are utterly horrible, but cheap to drive and repair, and no one in their right mind wants them and so I feel safe parking them with few precautions.
I like reliability. I like driving things with all the problems resolved long ago.
Most of my problems were electronic. Now solved thankfully - so I’m keeping the car forever 
I remember 20+ years ago going to North Cyprus. The man responsible for car hire drove a 1970’s Hillman (British brand long gone). It had been hand painted blue. People used to joke about it as he was hiring out all these modern cars. I asked him why and he simply said “if it breaks I can fix”.
I think you are correct. Toyota is worse. The Tundra is now the worst rated pickup, according to Consumer Reports. But the rest are dismally better. Thus I still drive my 18 year old Silverado. It is also pretty cruddy, but less cruddy than new trucks for ~$60K. That’s a lot of money for a crappy vehicle.
Chart fits my views, nice to see Toyota up top, Had only one Chevy, a K2500 rxr from '95, worst ever, after the 2nd engine, 3rd transmission as well as 4x4 headaches, A/C headaches, I gave it away for $3K in 2000 or so… Ford, well, it’s not flawless either, '06 F150 5.4L V8, had carbon locked spark plugs, cost dearly to fix, still have it, but a lot fewer annual miles lately, well, since buying the '23 RAV4 Limited Hybrid new, fully loaded, really all computer, so far so good! Likely our last vehicle…
weco
(nearly all Ford since my $25 '41 2dr sedan, slipped away to '53 Stude, then '57 Chevy, '70 F150, Ford Maverick. '82 F150, then that rotten '06 Chevy…)
I suspect that newer cars are less reliable because they are more complex to meet more regulations. I would like to see the reliability numbers of Chinese cars in the comparison.
A few years back, on a Viking cruise from St Petersburg to Moscow, our guide,Tatiana, was great, had a son working in Alaska, open to discuss anything at all, but she was divorced, and liked working on her Russian car, name slips my mind, but noted for being terrible, always needing work, but she was the first lady to invade the male car fixit world in the garage units they stored them in, so had had to prove herself to the guys.. So it’s a hobby to keep them running… Great gal, was an English Teacher in St Petersburg, did the cruise work just for fun, but I imagine it paid well, at least in tips!! Glad we did it before all the current mess…
Way back when I was enthralled by this beauty
One day I saw one at a service station. I asked the attendant to open the hood to let me admire the innards of the beauty. A few seconds later I asked him to close it, disgusted! Instead of seeing an engine all I saw were pipes, pipes hiding everything of interest.
Water pipes, fuel pipes, oil pipes, pipes, pipes and more pipes.
Open the hood of a 1960’s Corvette Stingray and you see the magnificent engine in all its glory.
The Captain
My son had a 2006 F150. He needed to change the plugs. We read up on the procedure and it was mentioned that the porcelain was prone to breaking off, remaining in the head. Sure enough, 3 of the plugs broke. They advertised a tool designed to remove the broken porcelain. It was $50. Worked great. It did take us 2 weekends to complete the job though.
My mother still has her first car, ‘56 Chevy Belair, sadly in storage*. Pop the massive hood and inside is the bare minimum of an engine. Plenty of room to crawl in and work.
* keep thinking I’ll get it out of storage one day and rebuild/restore it
If I had a car looking like that I wouldn’t give a d*** about what under the bonnet looked like
Excellent, my mechanic at the time, Alex, and I, watched the situation quite a while before he took it on, there was a max of 70 foot lbs to attempt removal, it failed that, so until we began chasing misfires, and until they got bad enough, we let to slide.. Changed a few COPs, Coil on Plugs, before going for it. I left it overnight, he soaked each plug in penetrating oil, overnight before the attempt, said they had a big cheer, when that first one came loose! He gott hem all out, safely, used the recommended anti seize coating as he replaced them, followed by a tuneup, been fine since,.. Spooky, as I read if they had to pull the heads, the cab had to come up or off, if the dealer did it..I think there was a recall, I provided the receipts for the work done, got some of it back…
I sliced one of the COPs open, also saw how bad one of the plugs were, and learned the system does multiple strikes to ensure firings.. Interesting, Alex was also a great mechanic, wanted to know what was going on.. Sadly he retired, haven’t found anyone like him since..
Great photos! The internet has made the techie side of me very happy, extending the neighborhood gang in the driveway looking under the hood into a worldwide gang of freaks…..
To add to the anecdotes, we bought new a 98 Jeep Cherokee 4WD. It’s still going. Initially, we drove it a lot. Especially on road trips. And, of course, some off-roading to access hiking trails and such. We drive it a lot less now (at least once a month to keep the engine lubricated) because our EV is much more economical. Crappy MPG by today’s standards. Something like 105K original miles. We’ve kept it so long that it is actually a sought-after vehicle for Jeep people today. We should probably accept one of the random offers we get (one was a note on the windshield, and another was a guy in a restaurant who saw us pull-up in the Jeep).
We’ve had the electronic door locks go out (had to pull the fuse to make them stop trying to activate), can’t fix those. They don’t make the parts anymore. Rear cabin light is flaky, as is the light on the hood when you open it (had to unplug it because it was always on and drained the battery). Otherwise, mostly just routine stuff (axle boots, new filters, oil, etc).
Our mechanic said that we got lucky because there were two possible transmissions they could have installed: Dodge and Toyota. The Dodge was a big problem. We have the Toyota. Almost no problems with it. The chart in the OP indicates that Jeep is near the bottom.
