The car I'm driving this week is an Audi A4 Quattro. I love driving it — it feels like a second skin, and intuitively anticipates my next move. It's comfortable, seemingly built of the highest quality materials, and solid as a rock. A much better buy than those flimsy American cars, embodiments of planned obsolescence. And yet, and yet....

The Consumer Reports 2009 Annual Car Reliability Survey is just out, and it places Audi in 24th place, behind many, many American companies, including Pontiac (soon to shuffle off this mortal coil), Lincoln, Buick, Ford, Mercury. The fact is, American cars have gotten a whole lot better.

The big news is how well Ford did. The latest survey found 90 percent (46 of 51) of Ford, Mercury and Lincoln cars and trucks enjoying average or above-average reliability. The Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan were in second place among family sedans, with only the super-reliable Toyota Prius topping them. They left the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry in the dust, and the sophisticated Lincoln MKZ edged out the Acura TL and Lexus ES.

Also scoring well was the Ford Flex SUV, though a plethora of all-wheel-drive Lincolns were below average. An American car (the Buick Regal) last topped the Accord and Camry in CU reliability scores in 2004.

Why Ford? Jake Fisher, a Consumer Reports auto test spokesman, said that the key is model longevity. He points out that the current Ford Focus "came out in 1999 and hasn't changed much. It was unreliable at first, but now it's a top performer. Instead of redesigning it, Ford tweaked it and got the bugs out. The result is a car that's more reliable than the Toyota Corolla."

It's instructive to look at the very bottom of the rankings, occupied, unfortunately, by a solid phalanx of American cars. At the very bottom is Chrysler (the Town & Country is the worst of the worst), Cadillac (especially avoid the STS V-6), Dodge (the Grand Caravan is a catalog of sins) and Jeep (the Commander should command little).

Three of these four are Chrysler products, and it appears that the company — just recently emerged from bankruptcy — has hit rock bottom.

But these things are cyclical, and Chrysler (whose sales fell 52 percent this year) could be on top again. The company, with Fiat as midwife, is trying for a rebirth.