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Lexus gets top brand marks from Consumer Reports; Ford, Jeep hit hard

Consumer Reports has released its 2014 Car Brand Report Cards, with Lexus again reigning at the top and doing so with the same industry-topping score of 79 that it registered in last year's Report Cards. This year, the institute credited its lineup for being "usually quiet, comfortable, and fuel-efficient," noting it's the only brand on the list "to achieve an excellent average overall reliability score." The Car Brand Report Cars list is meant to rank the best all-around vehicles based on CR testing and reliability results tallied by subscribers it surveyed. Each brand included must have sufficient test and reliability data for at least three models, a standard which left out 11 marques including Fiat, Jaguar, Land Rover and Porsche.
This 2014 Brand Report Cars edition is the first of a new format in which sub-brands have been broken out from their parent brands, with Acura using this year to move up the leaderboard into second place with a score of 75 for its "reliable, well-finished and somewhat sporty models." The top three was rounded out by Audi, climbing from eighth to third by scoring a 74 for "well-crafted interiors, nice handling and good gas mileage." Audi scored highest in the road-test portion, its improved reliability aiding its rise. The top nine was completed by Subaru, Toyota, Mazda, Honda, Infiniti and Mercedes-Benz.
Ford and Jeep weighed in at the other end of the rankings, Jeep taking the lowest overall score in the road tests and hampered by "a mix of spotty reliability." Ford was sunk by reliability issues with its MyFord Touch infotainment system which consumers found troublesome enough to negate its cars earning "solid test scores" for being "very nice to drive." Perhaps the rumored switch from Microsoft to Blackberry's QNX for the next generation SYNC will help them out. Cadillac's score also took a hit for infotainment reasons after it was the leading US brand last year, the CUE system in the XTS dragging Cadillac to the bottom of all General Motors brands.

Stellantis ready to kill brands and fix U.S. problems, CEO Tavares says

  MILAN — Stellantis is taking steps to fix weak margins and high inventory at its U.S. operations and will not hesitate to axe underperforming brands in its sprawling portfolio, its chief executive Carlos Tavares said on Thursday. The warning for lossmaking brands is a turnaround for Tavares, who has maintained since Stellantis was created in 2021 from the merger of Italian-American automaker Fiat Chrysler and France's PSA that all of its 14 brands including Maserati, Fiat, Peugeot and Jeep have a future. "If they don't make money, we'll shut them down," Carlos Tavares told reporters after the world's No. 4 automaker delivered worse-than-expected first-half results, sending its shares down as much as 10%. "We cannot afford to have brands that do not make money." The automaker now also considers China's Leapmotor as its 15th brand, after it agreed to a broad cooperation with the group. Stellantis does not release figures for individual brands, except for Maserati which reported an 82 million euro adjusted operating loss in the first half. Some analysts say Maserati could possibly be a target for a sale by Stellantis, while other brands such as Lancia or DS might be at risk of being scrapped given their marginal contribution to the group's overall sales. Stellantis' Milan-listed shares were down as much as 12.5% on Thursday, hitting their lowest since August 2023. That brings the loss for the year so far to 22%, making them the worst performer among the major European automakers. Few automotive brands have been killed off since General Motors ditched the unprofitable Saturn and Pontiac during a U.S. government-led bankruptcy in the global financial crisis in 2008. Tavares is under pressure to revive flagging margins and sales and cut inventory in the United States as Stellantis bets on the launch of 20 new models this year which it hopes will boost profitability. Recent poor results from global carmakers have heightened worries about a weakening outlook for sales across major markets such as the U.S., whilst they also juggle an expensive transition to electric vehicles and growing competition from cheaper Chinese rivals. Japan's Nissan Motor saw first-quarter profit almost completely wiped out on Thursday and slashed its annual outlook, as deep discounting in the United States shredded its margins. Tavares said he would be working through the summer with his U.S. team on how to improve performance and cut inventory.

Jeep planning on a Grand Wagoneer Hellcat?

Twitter guy and Finder of Things Hidden Bozi Tatarevic scored another gem: an internal ZF document referencing a Jeep Grand Wagoneer Trackhawk. Dating from at least early 2017, the German auto supplier paperwork pairs what would be a 6.2-liter V8-powered three-row Jeep with ZF's 8HP95X transmission. The Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk uses the 8HP95 gearbox, a version of the 8HP90 transmission used in the Dodge Charger and Challenger Hellcats, but built for all-wheel-drive applications and with a choice of gear ratio sets. This doesn't mean we'll ever see a Grand Wagoneer Trackhawk, but it looks like Jeep's been thinking about it. Not only that, but the brand was thinking about it with the just-launched-for-2019 Hellcat engine. The ZF document lists 729 PS for the engine in the Jeep, or a hair shy of 718 horsepower — just one off the figure for the 2019 Charger and Challenger Hellcats. The listed production dates mean ZF planned for a build run of April 2017 to May 2017. The document also mentions the Rolls-Royce Cullinan with two sets of build dates: from January 2016 to February 2016, and from December 2017 to January 2018. That sounds like a run of prototypes, which could be how the Grand Cherokee Trackhawk got included in the paperwork. The document didn't reference any other Wagoneer versions. A Hellcat-powered Grand Wagoneer would make sense. The new luxo-Jeep will be built on a modified Ram platform at the Warren Truck Assembly Plant, and we know Ram's working on a Hellcat-bound Ram 1500 TRX. And the now-iconic engine in an SUV that hopes to become a new icon would be a treat for dealers who wonder if the Grand Wagoneer will arrive too late to succeed. Again, this doesn't mean we'll see anything of the kind. Chrysler also evaluated a 300 Hellcat, but nothing's come of it. And with the standard Wagoneer still several years away — the renovations at the Warren plant aren't due for completion until 2020 — any hi-po version could wait another year after launch, were such a thing to happen. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.