Congratulations GM

Volkswagen continues to suck, I see.

I'm a big GM fan, so I'm glad to hear it.

I only buy Hondas so this is good news.

How is it that there are only a few marques above the 'average', and a bunch below.... how is that an average?

- Rob

The problem with Hondas is, there is nothing in their lineup that excites me.

Toyota has the Celica GT-S, but it is overpriced.

Is it just me, or does Nissan seem to have improved?

The S2000 does nothing for you?

Or even the RSX would be at least as good a car as the GT-S.

I just buy the cars because they get great gas mileage and last forever. I'm not really a car guy.

Both overpriced.

Same here - I had a Civic for ever, and now I have an accord. yeah, it isn't that exciting to look at, but I love the interior of my 2003! Nice black dead cow hide!

And the only problem I had was that the light in trunk was burned out when I got it. Honda makes great cars!

The moral of this thread: Kia's really really suck.

I think you have it in reverse. Of course, from my experience anything built in or around Mississippi turns out to be pieces of ****. For example, the ML - built in Alabama = P.O.S.

Great point, doesn't make much sense...

And about Honda's lineup not being too exciting, I hear that. But now that I'm nearing a career and hafta race reality, the glitz and glam of my pimped out ride throughout my earlier years are wearing off. I can imagine my next car purchase being the most practical, gas saving, and dependable car on the lot rather than the nicest looking. With gas prices like this, I'd drive a Prius just to save cash at the pump even though they look like garbage.

These JD Powers surveys are a joke, their sample size was only 48,000 people....The US alone produced over 12 million cars and light trucks that year.

RE: Averages....this might be an average based on cars owned by those surveyed, not based on the number of car makers listed. If Toyota, Honda, and General Motors made up a large enough portion of the sample, its possible that 269 was the average answer given by all those surveyed.

Good eye. The average as listed comes to just under 312 probs per 100 vehicles. Either they've left some above-average brands off the list, or someone's miscalculated.

I've owned a few Nissans - still have two. I considered them to be above average in reliability. I'd like to see the data they used for their story. If the poll is accurate, then kudos to GM. I hope they're able to narrow the gap with Toyota!

You're averaging a set of averages to get to that number, it doesn't work that way unless there were an equal number of samples taken for each manufacturer....the more common a brand is, the more of a weight it will have on the total sample...if half of those surveyed owned a GM, than GM's result would bring the overall average closer to its individual average problem rate.

I don't have sales numbers, but I'm reasonably sure that GM, Honda, and Toyota make up a big enough part of the overall marketplace to swing the average for the larger sample nearer to their own rates.

Why congratulations GM? It looks like Toyota kicked their arses.

A few remarks:

As a GM employee, I am certainly proud of the progress the company has made. We are fighting an uphill battle - the American automakers have huge legacy liabilities (healthcare and pension) to retired employees, where foreign automakers pretty much don't.

As far as the sample size, you can calculate pretty easily what the margin of error you get by taking a sample of a certain size - anyone who's taken a high school statistics course should be able to do this. I really don't think JD Power is that stupid to pick too small of a sample size to make their study meaningfull.

Congrats GM, you're average.

Congrats Mazda - NO problems!

That'll skew yer average...

You're thinking of "median" -- the midpoint with equal number above and below -- which is different from the average (or "mean").

The marques at the top of the list (Toyota, GM) sell a lot more cars, and therefore statistically carry more weight, than most of the ones lower on the list (Daewoo, Isuzu). (I'm assuming that the Power survey was weighted roughly similar to market share.)

Here's another way to put it: Say there's only two car companies, Toyota and Daewoo. Your survey has nine Toyotas, each with two problems, and one Daewoo, with 10 problems. To get the industry average, you take 28 problems, divide it by 10 cars. So the "chart" would come out like this:

Toyota -- 2 problems per car
Industry average -- 2.8 problems per car
Daewoo -- 10 problems per car

See "Ford".

It means 2001 Kias really really suck. The new 2004 Spectra is said to be much improved, although as far as long-term reliability, who knows?

So what is Volkswagen charging a premium for?

Looks like you could save twenty thousand dollars, buy a Kia, and not notice much difference in longterm quality.

Hell, even Suzuki is ahead of VW. *That* should be very disturbing to VW.

http://www.jdpower.com/presspass/pr...004055bfull.gif

A broader view... damn Land Rover almost 5 problems per vehicle. heh.

Two points.... it's still the opinion of 48k people. And if I was to be foolish enough to buy a Nissan truck of those sizes - I would much believe and appreciate the information of 48k owners. See, the problem with your comment is your relating 48k owners with 12 million. There were not 12 million vehicles of that market segment surveyed.

I think you're just trying to shrug this off and you don't have me convinced. Gallup does many polls with only 1,000 registered voters and releases "Who would you vote for today?' polls. J.D. Powers is a very respected survey within the automotive industry. I used to be a VoA/AoA employee and during the year we would push to win more and more. There were years we won three awards.

For Nissan to be that reactionary - there was something wrong.

I would be more interested in seeing a comparison in average repair costs, not number of problems. One brand may have several trivial problems which are cheap to fix, and another could have one or two problems which are much more serious and costly to repair. The "number of problems" is too simplified.

Aren't a good number of Toyotas made in the US now? If you're giving kudos to GM, why not every brand that makes cars in the US?
But to say congrats GM on being No. 4 is a bit silly.

Also, the validity of "long-term" study of cars manufactured in 2001 is a bit questionable. Three years is now considered long-term?

Because the average is based on all cars sold? And the upper few sell quite a lot, compared to those below?

I agree. But I guess since a great number of people are crazy in debt (national problem) lease's look so attractive... so I guess, 3 years is the new long-term.

Personally, I paid my car off and she is going on 5 years old and 50,000 miles. When people ask me, my response is... "she's still young". I like not having a car payment and feeling the only burden my car has on my financial success is gas, insurance ($600 a year isn't bad) and that rare event called repairs.

Having a hard time believing VW is that bad...
They might not be in the top league, but still...

-t

Read the article.

So are you saying BMW is average? They scored below GM.

In Most cases I have seen, VW has scored very low.

They aren't the VW they used to be.

Back in the 80s, I would have bought one. Now, no way.

RSX compares pretty favorably to the Celica in price, IMO. But I haven't looked that closely at the Celica, it's too ugly looking

Everyone I know with a VW seemingly always has to get their car repaired. On top of that, the parts aren't cheap.

Keep in mind that industrywide quality is much better now than it was in the '80s. The lowest-scoring brand now probably has better quality than the highest-scoring brand back then.

True, but I think the Celica is overpriced too.

I love Volkswagens. But I can't justify the price of one.

I owned several of them (mostly GTis) in the 80's and 90's - and nearly all of them experienced the same failures. I figured it was just part of the low cost of ownership.

Without ever improving their quality, VW decided in about 1985 (end of 1st gen Golf/Rabbit) that they would become a 'premium' car maker. Nevermind the fact that VW has historically been known to only offer efficient affordable cars. Nevermind the fact that Audi was already their 'upmarket' marque - and not doing too well.

I'm sorry, but wishing something were so doesn't make it so. Volkswagen was not and still is not competitive in the market segment they chose to compete in.

If you can't beat *Suzuki* in longterm quality - you are NOT a quality car manufacturer in any sense of the term.

I'v owned 4 Subarus and literally never had to put a dime into them other than preventative maintanince(how the hell do you spell that). I'm drooling over the new Subaru Legacy GTs too.

So they say Hyundais are among the best in initial quality but far worse than average after three years?

I also agree three years is far too short a time period, I would think 5 years would be much better than three. Whats the average car going to have on it for mileage in three years, only 40-50,000 miles? I'd say they need to start counting the problems at 100,000 miles--thats where you separate the men from the boys. My brother's work vehicle was a Taurus and he had almost no problems with it--until it blew an engine at 70,000 miles!

Also, nobody has talked about how bad mercedes has gone in the tank. I wonder if these are self-reported "problems" or what. Perhaps different car owners have different standards, I would love to see a copy of the survey.

I'm glad this thread got started. Gives me an excuse to post a pic of my new set of wheels.



2001 Honda Accord EX. Just got it last night. My very first car that I can call mine.

Anyway, not surprised to see Toyotas and Hondas top the list. My entire life, all I've had were those two makes. They last forever. And ever. And they still keep going. I was just driving my dad's 1993 Civic and realized that I was driving a 12 year old car. And it runs great. Fantastic gas mileage, great manual shifter, and the only thing it really needs is a little engine work. And this was a low-end DX. Great, great cars.

Mercedes began offering more affordable models (c-series) and selling the popular (US built) M-series SUV. I'm guessing that the US-built vehicles are of a lower quality than the same German-built models. It hurts to admit that, tho. I'll also guess that the C-series models, while affordable, aren't built to the high standards of Mercedes' flagship models. I see a hundred ($20,000) C230's for every ($50,000) E-something I see.

If all we could buy was E-class German-built Benzes, I'm sure the longterm reliability score would be much improved.

The C-Series do seem to have problems, my mother leased one and had all sorts of issues with hers. I'm just a fountain of anecdotal information

Why? I had always thought that they were of mediocre build-quality world-wide, but I don't know for sure.

Since I don't own a E-class Benz, or any other Benz I can't speak from experience.

I reckon it's just wishful thinking, then. If Mercedes can't deliver a reliable, high-quality product for fifty thousand dollars...then who can? Toyota? Somebody kill me please.

Your post would make sense if freaking Chevys and Fords and GMCs, etc weren't smoking Mercedes in the quality department and they're cheaper and built in America.

I suspect their slide has more to do with the Chrysler half of the equation sucking the life out of the Mercedes half.

So does Toyota's ranking include the Lexus line? Same question for Acura/Honda, Lincoln/Ford, etc.

It appears that they lumped 'em together under one nameplate.

None of the upmarket japanese makes are shown.

Toyota/Lexus

Nissan/Infiniti

Honda/Acura

Chrysler/Daimler