IMHO this list says much more about the owners than it does the cars
I've never put much weight in consumer reports. The more you know about a class of products, the more you end up disagreeing with their assessments and recommendations based on quirky reviewer preferences and small % point differences. In some cases they'll recommend something twice as expensive that might have half the lifespan so your total cost of ownership is 4X what it could have been, not even counting installation, removal, and environmental disposal factors that non-DIYers face.
Granted I'm thinking more in terms of appliances than automobiles, but the situation might even be worse with automobiles since the average person who consults CR, does so because they do lack knowledge about that class of products, including maintenance and repair. When it comes to automobiles, I suspect the average reader has spent more on repairs the
first 7 years (young enough that nothing major should have failed yet) than I've spent in 20 on my oldest vehicle.
It's sad but the average vehicle owner will have some trivial problem that a DIYer can fix for $100 in a couple hours, then they take it to a garage (let alone a dealership) and suddenly there's $1000 worth of problems that they never
knew they had. If I didn't know any better, that would really put me off certain vehicles too, but if you are vehicle savvy then that $100 is a small inconvenience relative to purchase price, other vehicle benefits, or myriad other factors that CR can't possibly factor for.
It
would be fair to say that a vehicle that needs that $100 part is less reliable, in that time period, but this is a somewhat trivial expense and people just get ripped off on the repair bill, while CR isn't doing surveys on most products old enough that you get any idea of the long term cost of ownership. They review as if you're going to throw away everything you own within 8 years and some trivial feature is going to Make Your Day. They are a symptom of our disposable society and consumer marketing. I think they need to focus more on the service industry.
I suppose that makes it impossible for them to please everyone, but I still come back to my initial thought that the more you know about a class of products, the more you tend to disagree with them.