Toyota and GM earn top ratings in Quality

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Toyota, GM Earn Top Spots in Quality Poll By DEE-ANN DURBIN, AP Auto Writer

38 minutes ago

DETROIT - General Motors Corp. and Toyota Motor Co., the world's two largest automakers, had the top vehicles in 15 of 18 categories in a closely watched survey of 2005 models released Wednesday by research firm J.D. Power and Associates.

Toyota's Lexus SC430 was the highest-ranking vehicle for the second year in a row. Owners of the luxury sedan reported 54 problems per 100 vehicles, less than half the industry average of 118 problems per 100 vehicles. Suzuki Motor Corp. had the highest rate of problems per vehicle at 151 per 100 vehicles.

Overall, Toyota had the top vehicles for initial quality in 10 categories, including the Toyota Prius compact car, Toyota Sienna minivan and Lexus sedans in all three luxury car categories. GM had five winners, including the Buick LeSabre full-size car, Chevrolet Suburban full-size sport utility vehicle and GMC Sierra heavy-duty full-size pickup.

The survey, in its 19th year, is an important one for automakers, which often use the results in their marketing campaigns. J.D. Power and Associates questioned more than 62,000 people within 90 days of buying or leasing a 2005 vehicle. The survey measures 135 attributes, including handling, braking, engine trouble and vehicle design.

Automakers showed little improvement in overall quality in 2005, moving up just one notch from 119 problems per 100 vehicles in 2004.

GM's Hummer brand showed the most improvement from the 2004 survey, J.D. Power said. Hummer was last among vehicle brands in 2004 with 173 problems per 100 vehicles. This year, it had 110 problems per 100 vehicles.

Nissan Motor Co. had the most improved vehicle model with the Nissan Quest minivan. The Kia Spectra, Hummer H2 and Toyota Scion xA also showed marked improvement.

Reply to
Jeff Strickland
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Does anyone have any info on how initial quality relates to long-term quality?

Regards,

Robin

Reply to
Robin S.

Gee even the "best" one had problem with more than half of the vehicles. J D Powers does not tell you what the "problems" were, nor are they quantified by severity. I. E. They don't tell you a bulb was missing, defective, simply burned out of that it caused a fire. Only that it is listed as an electrical problem. The are a marketing company their job is to come up with something EVERY manufacture can use in it advertising and subscribers (Manufactures) PAY for the privilege. If the manufacture wants to see the results of what actually went wrong, they need to pay even more for that privilege.

The fact is every manufacture is building good vehicles today. Any difference among them are minor, overall. If list on a numerical scale, rather than a simple list, they would ALL be in the 97% to 98% percentile on the scale. ;)

mike hunt

Jeff Strickland wrote:

Reply to
MajorDomo

After 18 months my Caravan file folder was almost an inch thick. After

18 months my Sienna folder has just a few pages to show oil changes and the radiator recall, mine was not leaking. Toyota replaced it anyway.

No mechanical device is free from problems, but from personal experience I can safely say Toyota has been more trouble free than any other vehicle I've owned and I've owned two Toyotas, four Chrysler products, three GM products and three Ford products, (a 49, 54, and 57, LOL). Oh I forgot the VW beetle, it was ok but I froze to death driving to work in the damn thing., also a couple of Honda motorcycles which never gave me any problems either. I may have missed one or two, it's been a few years. My most memorable car was the 1969 Plymouth Road Runner, which was Motor Trends car of the year, 1969. I still have the issue. Mine was fire red with a black top, my first NEW car, ah yes the good old days of four barreled carbs and four on the floor, gas was around .35/gal. Back then you could still work on your car in the driveway, remember.

Toyota is mostly trouble free, but as you say the others are trying hard to catch up and doing a good job of it, but still not on a par with Toyota, from personal experience, sorry.

Reply to
Dbu.

Im not against any brand, not my style. I can only suggest that no one can judge the qualtiy of all the vehicles of any brand, good or bad, based one the one they own today. If you will re-read my post it says every manufacture TODAY is build good vehicles. Cars from ten years ago ar more are not relevant today. Even those from five year ago are not as good as what they are building today. I can find as many problems with Toyotas, in our fleet service business, as any other. I can also see the much higher cost of repairing Toyotas when they need to be repaired as well.

mike hunt

"Dbu." wrote:

Reply to
MajorDomo

Yes, we all benefit from Toyotas high quality. The others will try to match them. As consumers, we all benefit! Even the guys buying the GM, Ford, Mopigs etc.

Reply to
Liberals=Angry Losers!

Every Honda cycle/moped/atv/etc that I've ever owned is as bulletproof as a battleship and ran like a Swiss watch.

Yes, nearly perfect engineering can be had. Honda makes nice vehicles as well.(Too bad Kawasaki doesn't - their bikes are also nearly indestructable and go really fast)

Reply to
Joseph Oberlander

No correlation whatsoever, especially in GM's case

Reply to
Steve Larson

I think you can answer this question by looking at the Consumer Reports annual Buyer's Guide.

I'll be the first to sugggest that this isn't the "tell all" method, but it should be reasonably close. What happens is, CR sends out a questionaire to its subscriber base and asks them to rate a wide range of stuff on their cars. To the extent they get a large sample for the model you are interested in, the reported experiences are reliable. I would not suggest buying any new car based on anything CR has to say, but they are a good read for general information, but I think the Buyer's Guide that asks its subscriber base to answer the questionaire is a good barometer, and your experience should pretty well match what everybody else has to say. Obvioulsy, your mileage may vary.

Reply to
Jeff Strickland

What year Caravan?

Reply to
Art

94

Reply to
Dbu.

Yeah my 99 300M is built 10 times better than my 94 LHS, no doubt about that though I did not have much go wrong in the 94 LHS either. No comparison in build quality though.... the 94 was a joke compared to the 99.

Reply to
Art

Do you actually think one can rely on CR? LOL

mike hunt

Jeff Strickland wrote:

Reply to
BigJohnson

No. But if 1000 people all report a good experience with their car, then I think it is reasonable that I should expect to have a good experience with mine.

This should be about as reliable as coming to a newsgroup and saying, "I'm thinking of a '99 Supra with an automatic and air. What do you guys think about this car?" If the inquiry was made in the Ford newsgroup, I'd suggest the responses wouldn't be very favorable or accurate, but if the inquiry was made in the Toyota newsgroup, I'd suggest that the responses would be reasonably accurate, whether they were favorable or not. If one is going to seek the advice of strangers to validate his automobile purchases, he may as well seek the advice of as many as he can round up. CR brings thousands of strangers together and tabulates the responses.

If the question is, "if this report -- the JD Powers report -- rates new car experiences, where would one find a report on used car experiences?" then the answer is reasonably, Consumer Reports. If JD Powers is an acceptable source of new car data -- and I make no assertion that it is or that it isn't -- then the CR Buyer's Guide that comes out annually is a pretty good source for used car data.

Reply to
Jeff Strickland

That could be if all of the 17,000,000 that purchased new vehicles every year were polled, not only the 69,000 CR subscribers that CHOOSE to be polled by CR. Besides when you buy a used vehicle how do you know if it was abused or not, or if it was properly maintained or not?

Remember in the last election the pollster at 7:00 PM ON ELECTION night predicted a big win for Kerry. Their predictions were based on some of the people coming out of the voting booths, that CHOOSE to be polled. LOL

mike hunt

Jeff Strickland wrote:

Reply to
BigJohnson

Do you actually think one can rely on J.D. Power? Power has included British brands in its top 10 for initial quality.

On the other hand, Consumer Reports' surveys correlate well with Popular Mechanics', and over 10 years ago, Gelco Leasing told me CR matched their experiences.

Reply to
rantonrave

What Powers survey shows is they ALL make some that are not up to snuff, on occasion, and they all fall into the 97 to 98 percentile, when taken together. Exactly the same thing we see in our business. What we see is that ALL manufactures are building good vehicles today. Give them the proper preventive maintenance, like we do, they will all easily go 200K or more. The only real difference is style and price.

In the real world no matter what brand you buy you are obviously far more likely to fall into the 97% or 98% group than the 2% or

3% group, so why worry? What you should be more conscious of when buying a vehicle is the cost of acquiring it, the cost of insurance, maintenance, repairs, parts and replacing the vehicle.

In the real world what is more important to you when you buy a car of equal size and power, $300 a month or $400 a month for four years?

In the real world what is more important $1,200 every six month for insurance or $1,600?

In the real world what is more important to you a dealership that has a shop rate of $55 an hour or $75?

In the real world when it comes to replacing a part once during the time you own the vehicle, what is more important replacing it at at 90K or at 75K when the cost of replacing at 90K is nearly twice as much?

In the real world what is more important to you getting $3,000 more for brand 'Y' than if you owned brand 'X,' when you could driven home brand 'X' for $6,000 less when new? ;)

mike hunt

snipped-for-privacy@mail.com wrote:

Reply to
BigJohnson

That's rediculous, Mike. In one example the polling is limited to subscribers of a magazine and this agreeably creates a focus group, but in the other example the "focus group" was manufactured for whatever reason to create an illusion.

JD Powers has no motivation to manipulate the poll results, no matter how large or small the sampling is/was, and the subscribers to CR certainly have no reason to lie either for or against the vehicle(s) they are reporting about and I see no benefit to CR to manipulate the results of any such polling. CR sends out its questionaire to all of its subscriber base, some complete the questions and send it back, and some elect to toss it in the trash can. If 100% of those that return the questions all have good things to say, and it 100% of those that toss it have bad things, then I suppose the results might be a bit skewed. But, I suggest that what people feel about their car does not sway them to either complete the questions or toss them in the trash.

I remain skeptical about any of these kinds of reports, but the OP seemed to accept that the JD Powers report as reasonable on one lever or another, and he asked about finding similar information on older cars. Debate JD Powers with him if you want, but CR provides the information he asked about. Whether or not it is any good is the same debate you will have about JD Powers.

Reply to
Jeff Strickland

Initial quality by itself does not have any effect to long-term quality. That said, initial quality has been a historic indicator of long term quality because automakers that take the time, expense, and effort to make the vehicles come out of the factory right will also tend to make them more durable.

Reply to
Ray O

Ya right. You are free to believe what ever they want yo to believe. How came CR print their conclusions of the merits of a whole model line of new card when they only buy and test ONE copy. CR is for the uninformed, period. Personally I stopped buying the mag way back when they said the Olds engine performed better than the Buick, when the Olds and the Buick both had a Chevy engine with their names on the valve covers or that the Dodge version of the same car was better than the Plymouth version. The only real difference was the grill. I would never bas my decision to buy any vehicle based on the reports of CR or Powers ;)

mike hunt

Jeff Strickland wrote:

Reply to
DustyRhoades

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