2015 Vehicle Quality Study by JD Power released!

[rh71]

Lexus dropped and BMW jumped... surprised.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

Poor Acura. Used to be a darling of the JD power rankings. Now it gets shown the proverbial tail lights by perennial bottom dwellers like VW.

 

[bradly1101]

I couldn't care less about 'initial quality,' I care about quality down the road. CR can tell you that.

 

[Yuriman]

JD Power has been a well known bs award for years.
Check some of their prior rankings to see how full of shit it is.

JD Power checks for the first 90 days.
It does not capture "reliability" or quality.
It's more a spot check on dealer prep and how well the final inspection at the factory went.

This. First 90 days of ownership.

 

[exar333]

This. First 90 days of ownership.

Hence why it is titled 'quality study'.

I do think the first 90 days are important. No one wants to be in and out of the shop multiple times in the first few months of ownership. I know I would be re-thinking my purchase if that was the case...

Reliability is also important. But that's different.

 

[ElFenix]

It's still not clear to me when 100 vehicles were examined, how the quality metric was obtained, ie if one car had 2 problems, does that count as two different problems, or just one car having any number of problems.

I interpret that as 100 cars were examined, and the total number of problems were recorded. That means 50 cars could have had 2 problems, and 50 could have had 0, but the metric would make it seem like 100% of the cars examined had a problem.

Also, just looking at a sample size of 100 is incredibly small when considering the thousands and thousands of cars made by each auto maker per year. If you had a bad production run for some reason that lasted even just a day or two, that count skew results quite a bit. I would hope/assume they polled many thousand people, then divided by 100 to normalize the data to be "PP100".

Still, if year after year, certain car makers end up higher or lower on this, I think that still gives a pretty good indication of long term new car quality. Still doesn't address anything over 3 months, which I'd like to see.

Everything you assumed about the survey is wrong.

And this is the initial quality survey, not the long term reliability survey. That's a three year survey (used to be longer, apparently with the rise of leasing they had a hard time getting enough survey results to keep the longer time period).

http://autos.jdpower.com/ratings/dependability.htm

 

[Ramses]

I didn't kill myself looking, but I didn't find anything about methodology in any detail on their site from the original link. As presented it looks like(to me and a lot of other folks apparently), in the case of Porsche for example, that 80 cars out of every 100 had something wrong in the first three months(no idea what the total sample size was). Which kinda blows imo. And those with over 100 out of 100 had more than one problem with some of the examples. This might well be an incorrect interpretation, but it's how it comes off to me.

 

[Anubis]

The margin in quality differences between Korean automakers and other automakers is particularly striking:
1. Korean automakers: 90 problems per 100 vehicles
2. European automakers: 113 problems per 100 vehicles
3. American automakers: 114 problems per 100 vehicles
4. Japanese automakers: 114 problems per 100 vehicles

ok so besides the Koreans, all cars are basically equal in this department - ill go back to ignoring this as I normally do as it really does not matter

 

[Jimzz]

I couldn't care less about 'initial quality,' I care about quality down the road. CR can tell you that.

Hahahahahaha... You're joking right? :awe:

As bad as JD Power is, CR is much much worse.

 

[exar333]

ok so besides the Koreans, all cars are basically equal in this department - ill go back to ignoring this as I normally do as it really does not matter

If you grade/lump all cars from one country together? How is this even really useful?

There is a lot of variability and I do think ~80/100 is MUCH different than ~150. That's a huge difference. That's 2x the issues in just 90 days...

You have to really go brand to brand. All the country grouping is tell you that the playing field is a lot more level today than it was 10-15 years ago. 'Japanese car' isn't the same, nor is 'American'. That's a whole other rabbit hole though, as many 'Japanese' or 'Korean' cars are engineered and/or built here, or partially, or non at all. It all comes down to the brand and model.

 

[z1ggy]

Everything you assumed about the survey is wrong.

And this is the initial quality survey, not the long term reliability survey. That's a three year survey (used to be longer, apparently with the rise of leasing they had a hard time getting enough survey results to keep the longer time period).

http://autos.jdpower.com/ratings/dependability.htm

How is what I assumed wrong? I'd like for you to explain then what the correct assumptions actually are, because from what I read, my assumptions are pretty reasonable. All I said was they never specifically say that they sample many cars (more than 100) and that they counted total errors over the data set, and not just cars that had errors. Those two differences are crucial, and they are not stated out right. If they were and I missed it, my b.

And whatever you linked me, doesn't detail the methodology of what's presented in this current thread, so I don't really see how it's relevant to this discussion. Yes, it shows that the top rated cars are 3 years down the road, using what I would guess is probably the same (unknown) methodology.

I'm not really trying to poke holes here, but I'm simply stating that without ALL of the data and metrics used, all these type of ratings are just very high level views.

 

[Railgun]

If you grade/lump all cars from one country together? How is this even really useful?

There is a lot of variability and I do think ~80/100 is MUCH different than ~150. That's a huge difference. That's 2x the issues in just 90 days...

You have to really go brand to brand. All the country grouping is tell you that the playing field is a lot more level today than it was 10-15 years ago. 'Japanese car' isn't the same, nor is 'American'. That's a whole other rabbit hole though, as many 'Japanese' or 'Korean' cars are engineered and/or built here, or partially, or non at all. It all comes down to the brand and model.

I'd even say, look at VW Group, look at GM, look at Ford...all as a whole, not necessarily each individual make. Although there's a wide spread between Porsche and VW for example, you can assume that the manufacturing process is pretty much identical for all intents and purposes within each group, depending, of course, on the age of the line.

 

[exar333]

I'd even say, look at VW Group, look at GM, look at Ford...all as a whole, not necessarily each individual make. Although there's a wide spread between Porsche and VW for example, you can assume that the manufacturing process is pretty much identical for all intents and purposes within each group, depending, of course, on the age of the line.

I somewhat agree, but even within one company the process can differ a lot from site to site. I'm sure there are some key differences from a brand-new site vs. An older one waiting for a refresh. Look at GM, Buick has been great and the lesser brands not quite as good. Same with VW and Porsche. But I do agree that commonalities would be present too.

 

[Achtung!]

If you grade/lump all cars from one country together? How is this even really useful?

There is a lot of variability and I do think ~80/100 is MUCH different than ~150. That's a huge difference. That's 2x the issues in just 90 days...

You have to really go brand to brand. All the country grouping is tell you that the playing field is a lot more level today than it was 10-15 years ago. 'Japanese car' isn't the same, nor is 'American'. That's a whole other rabbit hole though, as many 'Japanese' or 'Korean' cars are engineered and/or built here, or partially, or non at all. It all comes down to the brand and model.

I agree.

Although it seems like the Japan-made cars have been doing poorly. For example, most of the Subaru's sold in the US are made in Japan. And yet, Subaru ranked at the bottom, the worst of the worst.

 

[exar333]

I agree.

Although it seems like the Japan-made cars have been doing poorly. For example, most of the Subaru's sold in the US are made in Japan. And yet, Subaru ranked at the bottom, the worst of the worst.[/QUO

Very true.

I definitely wonder about Subaru. Because of current demand, is this more dealers being lazy and not doing their due diligence when they take delivery prior to customer ownership, or a factory quality issue?

When I got my WRX 4 years ago, I literally took the car an hour after it rolled-off the semi-trailer. The dealer hasd pre-sold over 75 cars that were en-route and these went directly to the customers. It could be demand-related. Some smaller Subaru dealers may just not have the processes in-place yet to handle the increased number of cars rolling off. Would be interesting to dig into this issue.

 

[AdamK47]

Chevrolet is better than Toyota and Honda? Everybody knows that's impossible.

This study is about as believable as the "chocolate diet" study.

 

[Squisher]

I remember the days when foreign carmakers were in the 130 range and the domestics hovered around 200. Things have gotten better for the consumer all around.


[snicker]Does Porsche count if they've made the same car for 30 years? I think they'd have gotten it right by now[/snicker]

 

[sgrinavi]

...

[snicker]Does Porsche count if they've made the same car for 30 years? I think they'd have gotten it right by now[/snicker]

That and the Porsche fan boys will never admit something they bought has a problem. LOL.

 

[exar333]

Chevrolet is better than Toyota and Honda? Everybody knows that's impossible.

This study is about as believable as the "chocolate diet" study.

First 90 days....

This is nothing in the life of a car, but is important. Toyota 'issues' could very well be an issue with a recall or sorts that the user reports. Who knows. Or Chevy just does very well in the first few months of the car's lifetime.

 

[Phanuel]

That and the Porsche fan boys will never admit something they bought has a problem. LOL.

Eh, they'll admit it after they've bored you to literal death talking about their beloved 964.

 

[HitAnyKey]

I suddenly want a Porsche for their reliability. Time to trade in the Toyota for it.

 

[Achtung!]

Very true.

I definitely wonder about Subaru. Because of current demand, is this more dealers being lazy and not doing their due diligence when they take delivery prior to customer ownership, or a factory quality issue?

When I got my WRX 4 years ago, I literally took the car an hour after it rolled-off the semi-trailer. The dealer hasd pre-sold over 75 cars that were en-route and these went directly to the customers. It could be demand-related. Some smaller Subaru dealers may just not have the processes in-place yet to handle the increased number of cars rolling off. Would be interesting to dig into this issue.

Well Subarus have always been infamous for transmission problems.

But it's very worrying that they rank at the bottom along with Fiat. Same goes with Mazda.

 

[postmortemIA]

Well Subarus have always been infamous for transmission problems.

But it's very worrying that they rank at the bottom along with Fiat. Same goes with Mazda.

And Subaru claims that 95% of their cars sold in last 10 yrs are still on road.
I am worried that this study is no longer indicator of mechanical quality (you know, the reason why your car goes to junk yard or becomes worthless)

 

[Achtung!]

And Subaru claims that 95% of their cars sold in last 10 yrs are still on road.
I am worried that this study is no longer indicator of mechanical quality (you know, the reason why your car goes to junk yard or becomes worthless)

"Still on road?" That says nothing about reliability or quality. For example, your car could break down 5 times and still be fine after you spend tens of thousands of dollars on the repairs.

And 10 years on road is nothing.

 

[ramj70]

THIS.


These results are BS as a person who can't figure out their radio counts the same as a engine blowing up.

I remember when Hummer was near dead last, H2 years. So I did some digging and found the 2 biggest things to drop them was 1: Gets bad gas mileage and 2: rides to rough; like a truck. No s__t its a 3/4 Tahoe with leather, its going to get bad gas mileage and ride rough. Yet dropped near the bottom.

Exactly. Not too long after my wife bought her Dodge Durango she started to complain that sometimes while driving the engine would rev really hight but not go faster and then all of sudden she felt a lurch/thud. Then my sister in-law said it did the same to her. When I drove I never experienced it and could never get it to do it. So I took it to the dealer to check it out. They could not find anything either.

Then I realized that she was probably accidentally hitting the paddle shifters on the steering wheel. Sure enough that is what it was, she would accidentally downshift with her foot on the gas and of course if revved high and then when it would shift gears back up there would be a slight jerk because the high rpm and shifting. Now she watches to make sure she doesn't touch the paddle shifters and no more issues. Since we took it in to check out that would probably be considered a "mechanical problem" per the survey but it wasn't.