JD Power Ranks GM Number 1 for Quality

[Ringo64]

DETROIT -- General Motors for the first time ranked atop a closely watched survey measuring new-vehicle quality, while Ford Motor Co. continued to be dragged down by its electronic features.

GM placed two brands -- GMC and Chevrolet -- in the top five of J.D. Power and Associates' Initial Quality Study released today.

The annual survey, redesigned for its 27th year, measures the number of problems on 2013 cars and light trucks that buyers report after 90 days of ownership. Volkswagen AG's Porsche unit topped all brands, followed by GMC, Lexus, Infiniti and Chevrolet.

"GM has the best quality of any corporation in the study, the first time it's been on top," said David Sargent, Power vice president of global automotive and the study's author. "And GMC and Chevrolet have never finished in the top five before."

Toyota's Scion brand, Chrysler's Fiat unit and Mitsubishi were at the bottom of the rankings. Lexus, Toyota's luxury brand, had topped the survey in 2012 and 2011.

Almost two-thirds of problems reported on 2013 models were related to design rather than manufacturing defects -- things drivers considered not broken but still difficult to understand or operate, Power said. "The manufacturers have gotten really, really good at building high-quality products," Sargent said. "Quality now is not just 'Does it work?' It's a matter of how it works and is it simple and enjoyable to operate."

Results of the study were released today at an Automotive Press Association luncheon in Detroit.
GM's four brands averaged 98 problems per 100 vehicles, and it was the only automaker with fewer than one problem per new car, passing Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co., which tied for second among automakers with 103 problems per 100 models surveyed.

Power said the Lexus LS sedan, which was redesigned for 2013, was the most trouble-free vehicle with 59 problems per 100 vehicles surveyed.

But it was the only Lexus model to top a segment. The brand grabbed the most awards each of the last four years and topped every segment that it competed in just seven years ago. "They will consider this disappointing," Sargent said of Toyota and Honda. "Toyota would expect Lexus to be No. 1 and Toyota to be No. 2. That's their mission. Honda would expect to be in the top five. And they're not."

Ford Motor's Lincoln brand tied the industry average of 113 per 100 vehicles, but with 131 problems per 100, the Ford brand finished No. 27 of 33 ranked marques, the same position as last year.

All GM brands finished above industry average. In addition to No. 2 GMC and No. 5 Chevrolet, Cadillac tied for 13th and Buick tied for No. 15.
"Nothing energizes us more than receiving the verification of quality from our customers," Alicia Boler-Davis, head of global quality and U.S. customer experience for GM, said in a statement.

Porsche, with 80 problems reported per 100 vehicles, finished well ahead of its corporate stablemates, No. 13 Audi and No. 23 Volkswagen.

GMC and Chevrolet were the only nonluxury brands ranked in the top five.
The Acura and Toyota brands tied for No. 6, Honda was eighth and Jaguar ninth. Hyundai, Kia and Mercedes-Benz tied for No. 10.

Power redesigned the study for 2013, after seven years, for several reasons. Questions about outdated hardware such as cassette players have been updated to include new features such as voice recognition and lane-departure warning. Power also switched from paper questionnaires to asking randomly selected owners to respond online.
The changes allowed the market research firm to obtain more follow-up details from owners about any problems. The change was requested by automakers surveyed and who pay Power for analysis of the data and use the study to assess quality and how to improve.

So yeah, what about GM's Quality?

[Frosty]

I think this is an interesting result. I am, of course, happy for GM. Working in and around GM all these years, quality has been and continues to be a huge priority for GM since the 1990s and they have taken it very seriously. This is vindication that all that hard work is finally paying dividends in the printed media.

What I find curious is that not only has a domestic automaker topped the Asian and European automakers for the first time of this survey, GM topped them in both manufacturing defects and "design" defects. I think "design" defects will become a huge differentiator for the next 15-20 years of this survey. The manufacturing gap has closed significantly by all automakers. So now design defects will measure things customer dislike that are not manufacturing related defects.

Congralutations to GM !