Filed under: Car Buying
J.D. Power Initial Quality Study analysis
When bought my first new car, back 1973, I’d been warned by friends to expect good half dozen defects that would need to be straightened out by the dealer. It turned out there were only five, quickly counted, before taking my little sedan back to the shop for repairs. was lucky. The worst problem had to deal with was loose mirror. A college chum, meanwhile, got stuck with bad transmission on the new Chevrolet he bought about same time. But he took it stride, as long as it got fixed right. And so did just about everyone else. Dealing defects was a part of buying a car back then.
But things started to change even before was ready to trade in. The twin oil shocks of ‘70s initially put focus on fuel economy – more specifically on high-mileage imports. But as memories of gas lines faded, emphasis shifted to unexpectedly high quality best of Asians were delivering.
One could argue – as an NPR talk show host did during my appearance this morning – that J.D. Power and Associates, with surveys like the Initial Quality Study, made Toyota and Honda by quantifying that quality gap. And it was big one, domestic makers routinely suffered twice the number “problems” the top foreign makers. Of course, even the imports had their issues back then, but as quality became watchword, even the worst manufacturers suddenly started to make it top priority, and, year-after-year, the defect count the typical car rolling off the assembly line has steadily shrunk.
According to Power’s latest survey, the average buyer 2010 car, truck or crossover is experiencing 1.08 problems during the first 90 days ownership. More precisely, in the language the Initial Quality Survey, there are an average 108 “problems” per 100 vehicles.
The products produced by worst manufacturer on list, Land Rover, suffered 170 problems per 100, or 170 P – less than two glitches for every vehicle. Put another way, that’s less than half what the best makers could deliver the early years the IQS. The best individual model, the Lexus LS, racked up just 55 PP100 on the latest study, which translates into just one complaint ticked off on the Power survey form every other buyer.
Continue reading TheDetroitBureau.com on Autoblog Paul Eisenstein
TheDetroitBureau.com Autoblog Paul Eisenstein originally appeared Autoblog Fri, 18 Jun 2010 14:01:00 EST. Please see our terms use feeds.
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