Surprise: American models dominate rankings of worst-made cars

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Four of the seven vehicles on our list of the worst-made cars on the road come from GM brands. And all of the cars on the list — including Chrysler’s Dodge Nitro and Jeep Wrangler — are made by Detroit’s Big Three. Only one car on the list is made by Ford Motor.

To determine our list of the worst-made cars on the road, we started with the lowest-rated vehicles from four reliability and performance studies conducted this year. Those studies are all from Consumer Reports: The Most Reliable Cars Report; Best and Worst Values Report; Best and Worst Safety Performance Survey; and the CR overall scores for 2010 vehicles…

The biggest surprise on the list, given recent automotive news: It includes no Toyota-made vehicles. In fact, Toyota reported a 40.7 percent gain in sales last month over March 2009; its Lexus division was up 42 percent. (Generous buyer incentives greatly contributed to those numbers.) And although Consumer Reports has removed its “recommended pick” distinction from Toyota vehicles involved in the current recall, many analysts are standing by their previous assessments of Toyota’s well-made products.