Honda cleans up in Consumer Reports picks
All 10 of the magazine's 2006 Top Picks are Japanese nameplates, but half are U.S.-made Hondas.
March 2, 2006; Posted: 9:26 a.m. EST (1426 GMT)

By Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNNMoney staff writer

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Japanese carmakers -- or, more specifically, Honda followed by Toyota and Subaru -- took all ten spots in this year's Consumer Reports magazine top picks.

No American or European nameplates are represented in this year's list, which is published in the April issue of Consumer Reports magazine.

The lone American model on last year's list, the Ford Focus, was replaced this year by the new, redesigned Honda Civic

Of the five Honda vehicles on Consumer Reports' Top Picks, four are manufactured in the U.S. The remaining vehicle, the Honda Ridgeline, was designed and engineered in the U.S. but is built in Canada.

Of the five other vehicles in the list, two are Toyotas, two are Subarus and one is from Nissan's Infiniti luxury division. Those remaining five are all are produced in Japan.

Consumer Reports buys vehicles anonymously for its test fleet through ordinary retail dealerships and tests them at a specially built facility in Connecticut. Among the tests performed are acceleration, handling, braking, ride quality and visibility.

In addition to track tests, test engineers also drive the vehicles in ordinary day-to-day situations.

To gauge reliability, the magazine surveys subscribers to both the magazine and its related Web site. Each respondent can supply data on up to two vehicles and the magazine received survey data on about a million individual vehicles this year, Consumer Reports said.

In order to be considered for a Top Pick a vehicle must have at least average predicted reliability, based on survey results, and good scores in crash tests by the government and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.