Consumer report rated Honda Civic Hybrid, Prius and Honda Accord Hybrid among most reliable in it's class. Mercedes, Volksvagen and Jaguar are among the worst. Quote"The difference between the "Most Reliable" and "Least Reliable" is striking, the magazine said, citing a comparison of the Toyota Highlander Hybrid and Mercedes-Benz M-class SUVs. The owner of the M-class is likely to experience 10 times as many problems as the owner of the Highlander Hybrid, the magazine said."
Story, as reported by CNN can be found here http://money.cnn.com/2006/11/08/auto...able/index.htm
Can't find anything about TCH, probably in the middle of the pack.

 

I have an online subscription to Consumer's Report and there is nothing about the TCH. I'm not sure that they have actually test driven it ...even though they indicate they have. The report doesn't appear to be specific enough.

 

The report on the TCH was included in their August issue I believe. They liked it quite a bit. Wasn't their top-ranked mid-size car, but it was up there.

As far as reliability goes they don't have the info. They send out surveys to their readers and have the results available for the April auto issue (perhaps sooner on-line). So I wouldn't expect to get any reliability info on the TCH from Consumer Reports for about another 4 months.

 

I'm not sure this is a statement about Hybrids, or more about manufactureres. Toyota and Honda have been generally more relaible than the others in most classes for some time. I am sure they proabbly paid extra attention to their new class of cars to make sure they get it right rather than to loose any chance of gaining market share in the new class.

 

Toyota and Honda definitely lead the pack. However, I have noticed that the Prius is consistantly much better than average, whereas a lot of other Toyotas are just better than average. I know that Toyota claims that the new parts of the hybrid system (motor/generators, PSD, etc.) are simpler and more reliable than the parts they replace (alternator, starter, torque converter, etc.). Maybe that's more than just marketing hype.