The issue of reliability quite often finds its way into other Threads and tends to get the Thread off topic, and especially so if Consumer Reports is mentioned, for some reason.
One of my main sources of information is Lemonaid by Phil Edmonston. I haven't looked at any of his recent books, but in the ones I looked at in the past, there was no sugar coating of Hondas or Toyotas there, all makes were treated equal and critiqued equally. No "'boys club" there, or pedestalizing. Didn't always agree with what was said but valued the material more than other reports.

MSN Autos is my second choice of information, not to just look at the numbers genertated via avarages, but to look at the individual reviews, profile the reviewer (some are fruitcakes and have to be ignored ) and to look for consistency in the good, bad and the ugly. Reviews by 25 or 50 people or more, is not a large number but if I could ask 25 Owners of 2008 Dodge Caravans right now, at random, about their vehicles, I would have a pretty good insight into what to expect.

Consumer Reports is my third source of information, keeping in mind that they has been perceived as being biased toward Asian Vehicles, Toyota and Honda in particular. That has been my perception as well, but then again, I haven't read any of their recent car reports seriously, not being in the market for another vehicle. My 2002 Caravan and 2003 Jeep Wrangler are performing well above the expectations one would have gleaned from their respective new vehicle reports and realiability ratings since then. I like this Post from another Thread:
I have often wondered why people who read cr would buy a chrysler product. Chrysler is always hounded to death about quality.
If one can get beyond the absent minded professor type statements in CR, like the "seat material is thin" without CR doing any comparative analysis or thickness testing (Where were the CR Editors on that one?) or "the vehicle is agile for its size" (So what ... what's size got to do with it, could have said it's low to the ground, like 4.3" above compared to a norm of around 6", even lower than a Plymouth prowler, and added more information). I wonder how they will sweep the Toyota floor mat situation under the rug. I digress.

Getting back on track, if one can ignore the non factual statements, which have a message, or they would have been edited out, Consumer Reports contains a lot of test data and meaningful information to assess and add to one's knowledge base. I think their reporting on home appliances, dishwashers in my case, is done much better. Hats off to those Guys.

CR is non-profit but it needs to support itself as well through readership, soooo it may not be as unbiased as it should be. The "Japanese is better than Domestic" has created a lot of readership.

Bottom Line: Glean information from Consumer Reports carefully. Don't consider it gospel. The Owner feedback does not consider the Owner profile which, may be quite different per vehicle, and there is no reliability rating for the information like "this information is accurate to within 3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20" or such. It's just information of sorts, best to not hang one's hat on it.

Other sources are the various magazines out there, automotive columns in Newspapers, various reviews on the web, talking with actual owners, talking with Rental Car Company managers, talking to mechanics, taking test drives. Again one has to be careful about the reliability of this informaton and be sure to ask the right questions, when appropriate.

So, what information do you use when making a vehicle purchase? How reliable was the vehicle information you used when making that purchase? How has the actual purchase compared, over the years, with expectations based on the reliability ratings used.