They still talk about it today. Basically CR drank the Toyota Kool-Aid and gave "Recommended" on every Toyota without even bothering to test any of them.
http://www.autoblog.com/2007/12/07/consumer-reports-rates-toyota-highlander-no-1-wont-recommend/
"no future Toyotas would get the benefit of the doubt and be labeled as "Recommended" based on the automaker's past performance"
"the magazine has made it clear that if Toyota's reliability rating returns to "excellent", it will resume automatically recommending its models again"
Toyota is the ONLY company CR does this for. NOBODY else gets away with "Past Performance" BS.
As I said, they're credibility is NIL. Trooper/Passport, 70MPH baby seats, Toyota auto-recommend, the list goes on...