Consumer Reports annual survey reveals which cars earn owners' love

Consumer Reports annual survey reveals which cars earn owners' love

Just in time for Valentine's Day, the February issue of Consumer Reports magazine has a relationship theme going.

CR's editors devoted eight pages to the ins and outs of online matchmaking sites on the information highway and ran the same amount of ink on the love affair (or not) between owners and the vehicles they tool around in on real roads.

Each year the reader-supported magazine, which eschews advertising to avoid potential conflicts of interest or advertiser influence, sends its auto survey to subscribers.

The February piece looks strictly at actual consumers' reports and opinions on whether they'd buy the vehicle all over again, factoring in cost, performance, comfort and enjoyment.

The readers' feedback is factored in to the magazine's ratings, along with staff road testing and reliability data from the same auto survey.

The survey went out in the spring and covered more than 300,000 2014-2016 vehicles and some 2017 models that were introduced early.

The 2016 owner satisfaction survey shows that although 70 percent of owners did, in fact, get satisfaction, with other models, the chances of winning their owners back sank like a rolling stone.

Compact cars:

Luxury compact cars:

Luxury midsize cars:

Luxury midsize cars:

Consumer Reports notes that the survey results show that some cars earned their owners love despite their reliability or conclusions of professional reviewers or CR's battery of tests.

Here are the ten most satisfying brands, ranked by the survey respondents: