Huh. I had to look it up, because I never would have put Subaru at the top of the reliability charts; experience and anecdotes would put it in the lower tier of Japanese automakers (granted, still well above average). But CR says #1 .. for now!
Historically, their history of head gasket issues, cam seal issues, ringlands on turbo cars, the continued use of timing belts, and other issues would definitely not have one placing Subaru at the top of perceived reliability rankings.
A lot of those are distant memories of old designs. Head gaskets have been a non-issue for a decade or more now and timing chains replaced belts a similarly long time ago.
Many of those issues were relevant to the EJ series of engines, which were used in various forms on almost every Subaru model for a very long time, but today pretty much every car uses the FB or FA series of engines.
Thanks, good to know. In the early 2000s the story was "we fixed the headgasket issues from the 90s!" which seemed to mostly be "we put in thicker coolant so hopefully it'll be less of an issue". So I feel it was reasonably to remain skeptical- it takes a long time for cars to get the miles needed for problems to surface. Our 08 Impreza (my wife's 3rd Subaru) still used timing belts. It had cam seal issues at 175k miles but the head gasket held up -- though not all did.
Historically, their history of head gasket issues, cam seal issues, ringlands on turbo cars, the continued use of timing belts, and other issues would definitely not have one placing Subaru at the top of perceived reliability rankings.
https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-s...