Pride of America: Ford beats Japanese

Ford Motors, the only major U.S. automaker to avoid bankruptcy, makes the most reliable cars in America — and even outshines some of its Japanese competitors, Consumer Reports magazine said yesterday.

Ford’s cars earned average or above ratings on 90 percent of its models for reliability, Consumer Reports magazine said.

Ford’s Fusion and Mercury Milan sedans also did better than Toyota’s Camry and Honda’s Accord, the top sellers in that segment, the magazine said yesterday in releasing its annual auto-reliability survey.

“It’s rare for Consumer Reports to see family sedans from domestic carmakers continue to beat the reliability scores of such highly regarded Japanese models,” David Champion, senior director of the Yonkers, N.Y.-based magazine’s Automotive Test Center, said in a statement.

The findings may help Ford, the second-largest U.S. automaker, build on market-share gains it has made this year.

Through September, Ford accounted for 15.8 percent of U.S. sales, a gain of 1 percentage point from a year earlier, according to Woodcliff Lake, N.J.-based Autodata Corp.

“Consumer Reports said 45 of our 51 products have average or above average reliability, and that’s very positive news,” said Bennie Fowler, group vice president of quality at Dearborn, Mich.-based Ford. “But we won’t rest until every one our products are average or above average reliability.”