File:12BestCarBrandsin1990byAverageofOverallReliabilityRatings.png

English: Car Brand Quality in 1990 by the Average of Overall Reliability Ratings: The Top 12

To compute brand quality ratings and assemble a brand 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 brand's model years and models offering an overall reliability rating. CR's 1990 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 best possible) to -1.0 (the worst possible).

The 12 best car brands by this set of computations, together with their quality ratings, are given in the bar graph above. Only those brands with at least 5 overall CR reliability ratings are included.

To see the ratings of all 1990 brands, visit http://CarsOnInfo.net/AllCarBrandsof1990.aspx .

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# .