English: Car Manufacturer Quality in 1985 by Average of Overall Reliability Ratings

To compute car-maker quality ratings and assemble a quality ranking using Consumer Reports' overall reliability ratings, a number is associated with each rating. A +1.0 is ascribed to a rating of Much Better Than Average, a +0.5 to a rating of Better Than Average, a 0 to a rating of Average, a -0.5 to a rating of Worse Than Average, and a -1.0 to a rating of Much Worse Than Average. Then an average is taken over all of the manufacturer's model years and models offering an overall reliability rating. CR's 1985 overall reliability ratings are found in the Trouble-Index row of its reliability charts.

For this measure of quality, the range is from -1.0 (the worst possible) to +1.0 (the best possible).

The quality ranking of the car manufacturers by this set of computations, together with their quality ratings, are given in the bar graph above. Only those manufacturers with at least 5 overall CR reliability ratings are included.

For a Google Knol that summarizes the changes in car brand and manufacturer ranking by this quality measure from 1990 to 2010, visit http://knol.google.com/k/james-bleeker/automobile-quality-by-car-brand-and/3o3u27f0whd6k/2?hd=ns# .

For a Google Knol that summarizes car manufacturer product quality from 1975 to 2010, visit "Car Quality from 1975 to 2010 - A History of U.S. Automobile Manufacturer Quality Ranks" at http://knol.google.com/k/james-bleeker/car-quality-from-1975-to-2010-a-history/3o3u27f0whd6k/9# .