This car brand scores the worst for owner satisfaction in Consumer Reports’ rankings

There’s no getting away from it: Jeep has a decidedly split personality today. According to USA Today, on the one hand, the brand is a cultural icon, “a community, a club, an attitude and a vision all rolled into one”. Earlier this year – for the 24th time in a row – Jeep was also named the country’s most patriotic brand. But for many people, including editors at Consumer Reports, Jeep ownership has a dark side. According to them, Jeep has the lowest score for owner satisfaction in the industry. What Consumer Reports says about Jeep reliability isn’t positive either.

And that’s all coming from the drivers themselves. After all, the CR numbers were based on the website’s 2025 annual auto surveys. CR asked respondents to consider things like price, performance, reliability, and comfort, but according to the website, the heart of the issue comes from a specific hypothetical situation: What would people do if they could go back in time to when they bought their current cars, knowing what they know now?

Satisfied customers were those who would go ahead and buy the same car — for Jeep, that was just 51% of those surveyed, the lowest score of any eligible brand. However, it is worth noting that this year’s 2025 CR survey did not have enough data to provide results for several brands, including Alfa Romeo, Dodge, Fiat, Infiniti, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lucid, Maserati, Mini, Mitsubishi, Polestar, and Porsche.

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What’s Driving Jeep’s Poor CR Satisfaction Grade?

Diving into the data, this Jeep brand also finished at the bottom of the barrel in another key category, the road test. A bad driving experience alone might be enough for a vehicle to come out on the wrong side of CR’s hypothetical question. Now, you might think the main culprit here is the Jeep Wrangler, but the brand icon has its own distinct personality. Despite harsh words from CR for its on-road performance — and a significantly lower score for predicted reliability — the Wrangler’s predicted owner-satisfaction grade was essentially on par with the Honda CR-V.

In fact, overall, it’s a case where the sum of the parts (satisfaction scores for individual models) seems to add up more than the whole (the brand’s overall satisfaction grade). The Wagoneer, Grand Wagoneer, and Gladiator all joined the Wrangler in besting the Jeep division’s overall estimated satisfaction performance, with the Wagoneers having the same estimated owner satisfaction score as the Toyota Highlander, and the Gladiator trailing only the Honda Revision.

Bringing up the rear for Jeep satisfaction — among the most recent vehicles fully tested by the website — was the Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xe. The thing is, while owners didn’t feel they got their money’s worth for the Grand Cherokee’s plug-in hybrid, and it’s been recalled again for sanding its engine, it actually did well in the driving experience, comfort and style satisfaction sub-categories.

Other brands with poor owner satisfaction

The five brands with the worst CR owner-satisfaction grades were Mazda, Nissan, Audi, and Volkswagen (going from high to low scores). For Mazda, the main issue seemed to be the same as for Jeep: an inability to satisfy owners with plug-in hybrid technology. For example, the Mazda CX-70 and CX-90 SUVs are available with both conventional gas engines and plug-in powertrains. With both nameplates, the pure-gas versions significantly outscored the PHEVs for price and overall satisfaction.

The Nissan lineup takes a slightly different approach to the problem. Yes, eight of the brand’s vehicles earned CR recommendations, but many of those vehicles, including the Nissan Rogue, received only average results for estimated owner satisfaction. Enthusiasts may be interested to know that, even though the Nissan Z Nismo is finally getting a manual transmission, the Z beats the Chevrolet Corvette and Mazda MX-5 Miata for estimated owner satisfaction in its class – it’s tied with the BMW Z4/Toyota Supra and comes in ahead of the PX718.

Audi’s owner satisfaction was undermined by the brand’s high cost of maintenance and repairs, as well as the poor value of cars like the A4 — the driving experience, comfort, and styling components of its satisfaction grade were nearly twice as high as its price components. Audi’s corporate cousin, Volkswagen, stood out in a different way, ranking 25th on CR’s satisfaction list, while ranking much higher among mainstream brands — at No. 12 overall.

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