In its Annual Car Reliability Study released Monday, Consumer Reports said the car radio/infotainment system generated more complaints than any other category.
Out of 17 problem areas in the car, the radio is the number one offender.
Touch screens still freeze up. Voice commands aren’t recognized, or the radio is slow to recognize a cellphone. These “communication” issues were the most often cited problems with the radio in the new study that tracked 1.1 million vehicles. Of, those, Consumer Reports then drilled down to owners of cars with four high tech car radio systems to further track problems.
Sixty percent of owners of Cadillac, Honda, Ford and Lincoln car radios said they find it difficult to learn how to operate their car’s radio system. Two out of 5 owners of MyFord/MyLincoln Touch systems had problems with the CD or DVD player and the touch screen.
Among those with touch screen problems, 56 percent said the screen was non-responsive to the touch and 47 percent said the screen freezes. In most cases, the Ford and Lincoln dealers repaired the problem, but a quarter of users said the problem persisted.
All in all, only about ½ of users are very happy with their car radios, which falls below typical satisfaction ratings, said Consumer Reports.
Of the four systems, HondaLink owners were most likely to be highly satisfied with their radio, at 61 percent. The Cadillac Cue system got a 56 percent high satisfaction rating followed by Ford and Lincoln at 52 percent.
Source: Consumer Reports
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