Magazine Revamps Recommended List

Ford Motor Co.’s Focus and six vehicles made by Asian automakers rejoined Consumer Reports’ recommended list after the magazine created a two-tier rating system to better reflect crash-test performance.

The new system has a higher tier of recommended models, such as Toyota Motor Corp.’s Camry sedan, with excellent or very good performance in government and insurer crash tests, the magazine said. The Focus and the other six are on a lower tier for vehicles that the Yonkers, N.Y.-based magazine rates as good on the tests or that haven’t yet been tested.

The seven vehicles had been dropped because they were among 14 small cars or trucks with the lowest mark on the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s side-crash test.