Consumer Reports just called out Fiat Chrysler for its alarmingly bad quality
"All Fiat Chrysler brands finished in the bottom third of the rankings, with Fiat coming last," Consumer Reports wrote in a statement.
"The reasons why most FCA products are at the bottom of our Ratings is mostly due to poor reliability and sub-par performance in our testing. Only the Durango is recommended, "Consumer Reports automotive specialist Mike Quincy told Business Insider in an email.
"The Ram 1500 and Jeep Grand Cherokee WOULD be recommended, but poor reliability brings them down," he added."Many products, such as the Jeep Compass and Patriot, are very old designs that weren't competitive -even when new."
As for Fiats: "All the Fiats we've tested did not do well in our evaluations and have well below average reliability," Quincy wrote.
Consumer Reports' annual Brand Reports features 30 brands ranked by the publication's staff based on the scores earned by their vehicles in testing conducted at CR's Auto Test Center in Connecticut.
In response to the Report Card, Fiat Chrysler North America's VP of Quality, Matt Liddane, issued the following statement:
"We value all feedback from our customers and third-party evaluators, including Consumer Reports, as it helps guide our product improvements. We respect Consumer Reports' opinion, as they're one of the many third-party evaluators we receive comments from. With that being said, we encourage customers to experience our vehicles for themselves. We continue to aggressively pursue both product and launch-quality improvements as they are top priorities for the Company and our internal measurements are showing progress."
Consumer Reports' criticism of the Italian-American automaker is just the latest in a string of reliability concerns stemming from the company's products.
Last year, the publication told Business Insider that its readers reported issues major issues with Fiat Chrysler's UConnect infotainment system, as well as the company's ZF 9-speed automatic transmissions.;
With that said, the problems has not thus far affected Fiat Chrysler's sales momentum. FCA finished 2015 fourth in sales with more than 2.2 million cars, trucks and SUVs sold in the US.
Audi, Subaru, Lexus, Porsche and BMW finished at the top of the Consumer Reports' 2016 Brand Report Card.