Main theme: This week, the podcast panel opens the mailbag to answer your pressing questions about car buying, maintenance, safety, and the auto industry. We even bring in some special guests! Audience Questions• Should I get a new car if my really old car still works fine?• Does the “don’t buy a new car in…
Safety EquipmentIn recent years, a growing number of new cars have included advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) technology as optional, if not standard, equipment. That means used cars are more readily available with features ranging from automatic emergency braking (AEB) to adaptive cruise control (ACC). Among those features, Consumer Reports highly recommends AEB with pedestrian…
But there are many excellent vehicles that sell for far less than that. To assist bargain hunters, we’ve assembled a list of the best new cars and SUVs under $30,000 based on their Overall Score, factoring in road-test performance, owner satisfaction, predicted reliability, and safety. Unless otherwise noted, all come with standard automatic emergency braking…
As a true candle lover myself, I can attest to how expensive they can get, and every time I put a match to a wick, it feels too much like lighting money on fire. And if you’ve ever awakened in the middle of the night to find a burning candle, as I have, then you…
Keith Barry Keith Barry has been an auto reporter at Consumer Reports since 2018. He focuses on safety, technology, and the environmental impact of cars. Previously, he led home and appliance coverage at Reviewed; reported on cars for USA Today, Wired, and Car & Driver; and wrote for other publications as well. Keith earned a…
When you set up kids mode, you’ll be prompted to put in your child’s name and their birthday, which allows Amazon to recommend books appropriate for their age. You can make multiple kid profiles, but you’ll need a PIN or passcode to switch off kids mode and return to regular Kindle mode. I set up…
Update Dec, 22, 2025: Prompted by this investigation, Instacart has stopped offering technology that allowed grocery retailers to charge shoppers different prices for the same groceries at the same time. Learn more about that change, as well as legislative and regulatory responses to our findings. This article is part of Consumer Reports’ Make the Price…
The name “Cleancult” is a play on words; it’s a cleaning product brand, yes, but it also implies that the products themselves are “clean”—i.e., made without, nor producing, harmful substances or chemicals. The brand aims to “help more people switch from a bad plastic habit to a cleaner ritual” by encouraging consumers to refill their…
If You Have a Dog, Consider These Kits I don’t have a dog, so I didn’t try these at-home DNA test kits for dogs, but these are the kits specifically for dogs from Basepaws and Wisdom Panel, the two companies I’ve tested for my cats. Basepaws Dog DNA Test Wisdom Panel Breed Discovery Dog DNA…
To find out which brands make the best dishwashers, we created a statistical model that incorporates the Overall Score of each dishwasher we’ve tested. We specifically looked at brands with at least four models in our ratings. We looked at how well the dishwashers of a certain brand performed in our lab tests, how reliable…