New Car Reliability is best ever- says US Survey
JD Power is a highly respected market research company in the USA, and its annual new car reliability survey has garnered much attention over the last 40 years. They have just published their latest survey on new car reliability and customer satisfaction. The vehicle dependability survey took into account more than 43,000 original car owners of vehicles that were three years old and recorded any problems that arose in the past 12 months.
They use a factor of “number of problems per 100 cars”. This year’s results showed an average number of 151 problems per 100 cars which was the best figure ever recorded! There are some surprises on the list – we’ll just look at those cars that are available in Australia (the top car was, in fact, Ford’s US luxury brand, Lincoln).
The second most reliable brand, Lexus is no surprise as it has always performed well, earning just 109 points.
Perhaps more surprisingly (maybe that’s a little unfair as they have done particularly well in recent years) is Jaguar, with a performance figure of 112, well below the industry average.
Above average performers included (in order of reliability):
Porsche 114,
Toyota 122,
Mercedes Benz 128,
Hyundai 132,
Honda 139 and
Ford 140.
Of the brands that will not want this survey published, Mini heads the list with a figure of 221 – that’s more than double the problems experienced by the most reliable brand.
Mini are closely followed by:
Jeep 214,
Land Rover 212,
Volkswagen 191,
Suzuki 190,
Mitsubishi 186,
Nissan 183,
Mazda 181 and
BMW 164.
Kia, Volvo, Subaru and Audi were pretty much line ball with the average.
Topping individual cars was the iconic 2008 Porsche 911 with a score of just 68.
Efforts have been made to get a similar survey conducted in Australia, but it has so far fallen on deaf ears.
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