Don't Even Think About These Used Cars

Mar. 09, 2018 1:15 PM ET by Jonathan Yarkony / 171 Comments

Just step away from these used cars.

In a commendable public service to car shoppers, Consumer Reports annually combs over its data and plucks out the cars it's deemed Much Worse Than Average in terms of overall reliability to add a list of Used Cars to Avoid Buying. Last week, CR update the list with any recent 2016-2017 models that deserve your scorn and ridicule for being pathetic, poorly built sad-sack excuses for used car purchases (unless of course, they're super cheap!!!).

Consumer Reports features a handy drop-down list sorted by brand on their site, with each brand's worst of the worst dating back to 2007 (which appears to have just a lone entry for the Audi Q7). But we don't want you to go there and you just want to find out which models have been added this year anyway, right? The latest 2017 additions are from all corners of the market-luxury and mainstream, cars and crossovers, compacts to full-size pickups.

BMW

These are the 2017 model to be avoided as per CR: BMW X3; Buick LaCrosse; Chevrolet Camaro, Cruze, Corvette, Silverado 1500, Tahoe; Ford Fusion, Mustang; GMC Acadia, Sierra 1500, Yukon; Jaguar F-Pace; Lincoln MKC, MKX; Mercedes-Benz GLC; Tesla Model X; and Volvo XC90. While these are the 2017 models, some have been on the list for multiple model years, like the GMC Acadia for 2008-2011 and 2013-2014, the BMW X3 for 2008 and 2011-2012, and the Chevy Cruze for 2011-2012 and 2014.

Motor Authority

While GM gets hit the hardest with nine models listed for 2017, that's not surprising since they have over 30 on the list (almost one third of the list of 108 vehicles). Chevrolet has the most overall with 13 from all the years this list covers, followed by Volkswagen with 11 and Ford with 10. At the other end of the spectrum, only one full-line manufacturer is squeaky clean with no cars to avoid: Honda. Genesis, Land Rover, Mitsubishi and Smart are also absent, but they may be missing simply because their volume is so low that they don't quite have enough feedback to make valid recommendations. Kia, Toyota, Jaguar, Lexus and Porsche only have one model apiece for a single model year, so that is very respectable as well.

Ford

Tesla

Don't Even Think About These Used Cars

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