I'm not happy with CR either. I hope one day it fizzles and disappears into history. There's inherent bias in the way CR gets these reliability reports through voluntary responses from owners. Usually, only those with strong opinions will respond to a voluntary survey. Since drivers are far more likely to be strongly angry over reliability (when was the last time you saw a driver do a dance singing "My car is so reliable.........my car is so reliable!"), those with unreliable cars are more likely to respond negatively to a voluntary survey like CR's.

Also, people who buy luxury cars tend to be more persnickety about minor problems. Forums like these tend to paint a bad picture of constant problems when driver's moan and b*tch: "Why can't BMW make a non-leaking moonroof?" "Why can't Mercedes engineer a more fun car to drive?". When my dad bought a Toyota a few years back, there was a constant rattling in the headliner due to something loose. Did we care enough to bring it to the dealer? No. Now with our X3, there's the occasional rough start in the mornings which goes away after it warms up. But we make a big deal outta it. Is it annoying? Absolutely not cuz we don't hear it in the cabin. But do we want to care? Yes.