Brands
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Blog
Car Brands With the Highest Road-Test Scores
The staff at CR’s 327-acre Auto Test Center study the automotive market, identifying the new models and trim levels that are most relevant to our members. We then spend more than $2 million each year buying examples anonymously to evaluate as soon as they go on sale. By doing this, we know what the car-buying experience is like, and we…
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Car Brands Ranked by Maintenance and Repair Costs Over Time
Knowing the typical ownership costs for each brand can help you save money in the long run by avoiding surprises, either by choosing a less expensive brand to maintain or by budgeting accordingly. “The difference to maintain a car on average between some brands can be thousands over a 10-year time frame,” says Steven Elek, Consumer Reports’ program leader for…
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Best and Worst Cooktop Brands of 2024
What makes a great cooktop? On its highest settings, it should be able to bring a pot of water to a rolling boil in a hurry. Then, on its lowest simmer setting, it should be able to melt chocolate smoothly, without scorching the bottom of the pot. And it should be reliable, because repairs can be both difficult and expensive.…
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What to Know About Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Brands
Price per pair: $699 to $999. Where to buy: Lexie, Best Buy, CVS, Walgreens, Walmart. Preset or self-fitting? Self-fitting. Battery type: B1 and Lumen, replaceable battery; B2 Plus, rechargeable. Return policy: 45 days if purchased from Lexie or Walgreens; 60 days if purchased from Best Buy, CVS, or Walmart. Customer service: Phone support and video call support via app. And…
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Best and Worst Dishwasher Brands of 2024
To find out which brands make the best dishwashers, we created a statistical model that incorporates the Overall Scores of all the dishwashers in our ratings. We looked at how well the dishwashers of a certain brand performed in our lab tests, how reliable and satisfying they were to the CR members we surveyed, and how easy they were to…
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Best and Worst Hearing Aid Brands
We rated 17 prescription hearing aid brands: Audible, Beltone, Bernafon, Jabra/Jabra Enhance, Lucid, Miracle Ear, Oticon, Philips, Phonak, ReSound, Rexton, Siemens, Signia, Starkey, TruHearing, Unitron, and Widex. For the first time, we also received enough responses from people who bought OTC hearing aids to rate three OTC brands: Eargo, Jabra Enhance, and MDHearing. Source link
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Best Tire Brands of 2024
Our tests measure performance in braking, comfort, handling, hydroplaning (when water gets between the tire and the pavement), noise, snow traction, and other important areas. We test braking on ice at a local skating rink (shown below), and an outside lab assesses rolling resistance, which affects fuel economy. Plus, we evaluate tread life by driving thousands of miles on a…
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Most Reliable Appliance Brands – Consumer Reports
Yet again, Speed Queen sits atop our rankings and is the only brand to achieve a top Overall Score (though it makes appliances for only two product categories, washers and dryers—see chart below). And once again Viking landed at the bottom of our chart, joined this year by another elite brand, Dacor, which also received an unfavorable Overall Score. The…
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Most Reliable Heat Pump Brands
Because you’re likely to use your heat pump year-round, you’ll want one from a brand with a reliable track record. That’s why we asked about 10,000 of our members about their experiences with heat pumps installed between 2007 and 2023. Based on our analysis, we determined that, on average, about half of heat pumps are likely to experience problems by…
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Most and Least Reliable Dishwasher Brands
Our predicted reliability ratings are based on data about nearly 70,000 dishwashers, spread across 28 brands. All of the machines in our survey were purchased by CR members between 2014 and 2024. They include models from popular names such as Bosch and Samsung, lower-cost options like Ikea, and high-end companies such as Miele and Thermador. We combed through the responses…
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