If people say that Hyundai and Kia is below average in quality, how does Consumer Reports rank the 2 brands in quality?
Take what Consumer Reports takes with a grain of salt. That being said, I don’t care how they rank those brands - it’s not going to change the fact people should not buy them, and we will keep warning others against them. Do I hope they will build long lasting reliable cars in the future? Yes, of course. Do I wish all automakers would do that? Yes. Will it happen? No. In fact, it’s a race to the bottom.
Consumer Reports publishes whatever whoever pays them the most.
Consumer Reports makes money by reviewing products ..... just think about that for a minute
How can you tell there wasn’t any under the table deals?
Consumer Reports is biased. I once read an article on one of their cars; I forgot the model but it wasn't any Hyundai product and it literally said "There are better family sedans on the market out there." If that isn't biased then I don't what is.
Better in terms of what? The context matters. I don’t think that statement is necessarily biased - depending on the context. Better in terms of safety, performance, cargo capacity, technological features, overall value, etc? In that case, it might objectively be true there are better sedans out there (for that example). CR does sometimes evaluate and give their assessment of cars which go beyond just the objective analysis, similar to some of these car magazines except allegedly they are not supposed to be paid for by the automakers (and rely on subscribers).
In terms of quality.