As much as I have concerns about the way Consumer Reports reviews tech gear, I will take their reader surveys seriously, having answered some of them myself. While some of the questions seem a tad too general, at least CR appears to be making an honest attempt to determine if a product or service is reliable or not.
My personal experience has actually shown those reliability surveys to be very much on the mark. Consider that 2002 Honda Accord I used to drive. CR says there are transmission issues, and yes, Honda did have a special repair program that addressed premature failure. But it never happened to me over the 74,000 miles my son and I put on that vehicle.
The earliest Intel-based Macs also didn’t have quite the bullet-proof hardware reliability you’d expect from Apple gear. They ran hot, a problem that was at least controlled somewhat with ongoing updates to the cooling fans. But it appears that hardware may have been prone to other ills.