Brands With Bad Infotainment Slip in Reliability Survey

In-car electronics generated more complaints from people who bought 2014 model year vehicles than anything else.

According to Consumer Reports Annual Auto Reliability Survey, the category, problems associated with infotainment systems are becoming a growing reliability plague for numerous automakers. Some companies saw their reliability rankings drop due to infotainment bugs and glitches.

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Issues commonly reported in past surveys included unresponsive touchscreens or a reluctance to pair with smartphones while this year’s survey added issues with multi-use controllers not functioning properly. The Infiniti Q50 was the worst first-year infotainment offender in this year’s survey with over 20 percent of its owners reporting problems. Combined with the poor reliability performance of the QX60 SUV, the Japanese automaker saw its reliability rank drop to 20th overall.

Topping this year’s rankings were Lexus and Toyota, continuing their dominance in the annual survey. Mazda rose two spots to third place while Honda went up four places to secure fourth place overall. Audi rounded out the top five, but dropped one place compared to last year.

Fiat continued to be the worst brand in the Annual Auto Reliability Survey, followed by Jeep, Ram and Dodge – all Chrysler subsidiaries. Mercedes-Benz plummeted 11 spots on the heels of the new CLA-Class release, landing it in the 24th position.

Tesla was not included in the overall brand reliability rankings as the publication requires an automaker to have a minimum of two models in order to be ranked. It did note that the Model S received an average rating and will remain a CR Recommended vehicle.

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