Study: Vehicle Quality Dictates Customer Satisfaction!

Automobile manufacturers can benefit from repeat purchases and word of mouth recommendations for their products, if the long-term dependability rates for their products are high.

So will we see auto makers highlighting dependability as a selling point during the upcoming automotive trade events?

Deterioration in vehicle quality during the first three years of ownership strongly affects overall customer satisfaction as well as customer willingness to recommend their vehicle model, found a recent study by JD Power.

How Quality Affects Satisfaction?

This study measured problems experienced by original owners of 3-year-old (2005 model year) vehicles and found that on average, customers report experiencing 75 percent more problems in the third year of ownership than during the first 90 days.

The models with the largest increase in problem levels resulted in the highest declines in customer satisfaction as well as the probability of the owners recommending their vehicle models.

On the contrary, those models that averaged less than 35 percent problem growth fared a lot better in overall satisfaction during the three-year period. However, none of the models studied, reported lesser problems by the third year.

Where The Auto Makers Have Failed?

Although, car manufacturers aren't completely indifferent to the problems of car owners, and have indeed addressed quite a few issues, the following problems have remained unattended during the three year period, since the study began in 2005, up to now.

These problems include:

1. Excessive wind noise
2. Noisy brakes
3. Vehicle pulling to the left or right
4. Issues with the instrument panel/dashboard
5. Excessive window fogging

In fact all of these problems are the five of the top 10 problems reported industry-wide in the 2008 Vehicle Dependability Study, and that they were among the top 10 most frequently reported problems in the 2005 Initial Quality Study too.

I know how irritating noisy braking systems can be, automakers need to act fast and do something about these. Perhaps an extra attention to these issues before a vehicle launch would result in happy consumers, and consequently, increased customer satisfaction.

Why Car makers Still Deserve Kudos?

• The results also show that long-term vehicle quality has gone up by 5 percent industry-wide in 2008.


• Compared with 2007, there's been an overall decrease of 10 problems per 100 vehicles.


• Between 2007 and 2008, over 60 percent of the 38 nameplates studied showed improvements.

And out of the 19 segments studied, the midsize premium MAV segment improved the most with 36 percent. Next in line were the compact car and midsize car segments, both of which combined, accounted for over 50 percent overall industry improvement.

With the highest improvements reported in the small car segment, it's good news for consumers because these are also the segments which have become the 'hot cakes,' in the wake of skyrocketing gas prices and a wobbly economic scenario.

Vehicle Dependability Scorecard

For the 14th time in a row, Lexus ranked highest in vehicle dependability, improving by 25 problems per 100 vehicles since 2007 to achieve a score of 120 PP100.

The following graph shows the first 23 brands by rank.

The figure below shows the top three models for each of the car segments.
The chart below shows the top three models for each of the Truck/Multi-Activity Segments (MAV).


So while car makers fix their products, you might want to take a peek into the hunting ground for car buyers these days.