I don't take consumer reports too seriously as far as cars go. As the name implies it is information reported by car "owners" (more on that later), not statistical data about recalls, number of fixes per car model, severity of problems per car model and other truly relevant reliability data. They ask people to report what cars they had and the number of problems. A "problem" could be anything from a broken car stereo button to a broken transmission after only 15,000 miles. This gives an advantage to cars with good fit and finish (which I'll admit the domestics haven't been as good as the imports historically). A car that has the radio button break, excessive highway noise and a sticky ignition has 3 problems but a car where the engine blows up only has 1 problem. This hides the true durability of the vehicles. This is why Jaguars consistently rank very high in consumer reports but have a terrible reputation for reliability. All the little things work great but when they break, they are serious about it.
Another problem with consumer reports is that all the data is self reported. This opens the door to all kinds of consumer perception. For example, cars stereotypically driven by older drivers like lincoln and oldsmobile before it was axed rank highly, as the elderly are less likely to complain if the sync audio system or whatever breaks because they are less likely to use it in the first place. Youth oriented brands like Scion rank lower because young people are more likely to complain about every insignificant detail and blame the car for driver error (such as not knowing how to properly drive a manual transmission car). Also people use the forms to claim to own cars that they don't and either praise their dream car or crap on their car's race rival. Don't believe me? Consumer Reports received over two times as many reports from Ferrari Enzo "owners" as there were Enzos produced.
Thirdly, consumer reports frequently groups cars by country of origin ( American cars, Japanese cars, German cars). This means that if Ford builds really reliable cars but GM and MOPAR don't Ford suffers from the faults of its neighbors (Just an example. I'm a GM guy). Also if Honda, Nissan and Mazda build really reliable cars but Suzuki doesn't, they get the boost from their neighbors (once again just an example).
Fourthly most of their data is taken from three year old models. Most modern cars are still under warranty at this time and have had no major problems. What really matters is 5 or 10 years down the line. Consumer reports doesn't have any where near enough data in this time frame and even if they did, it wouldn't necessarily be relevant. By that time, the cars have likely under gone major reengineering, so it has no real bearing on what new car you should buy. And if you think that you should buy from a car maker that has been historically reliable, look at all the quality issues Toyota has been having lately. CEOs change, Engineers change, corporate design philosophy changes.
Lastly, until a recent Honda slipup (the manual transmissions in newer accords and civic SI), Honda and Toyota were assumed "5 star reliability" in the 3 year period between when a new model came out and CR could collect data on three year old ones, where as every other manufacturer had to prove it. This is clearly prejudiced. Every manufacturer has had quality issues at some point, including Honda and Toyota, and contrary to popular belief, Toyota has had recalls and quality issues prior to this recent accelerator scandal.
I could go on for days but the point is CR sucks. If you want a great toaster, fine, see what CR has to say. If you want a nice car, you are going to have to do some more research. If you really want to see some CR hate, fine a Suzuki Samurai enthusiast forum and ask them what they think about CR.