The more expensive the better? The well-known axiom is refuted by J.D. Power, an American marketing and consulting company renowned primarily for its automotive research.
At the end of February 2017, the company published a new car reliability rating... In it, the most popular two-year-old car brands produced are arranged according to the level of reliability, quality and durability.
It turned out that although Lexus and Porsche are the undisputed leaders in terms of the reliability of their cars, the owners of less expensive cars can also enjoy excellent quality.
For the 28th study, 35,186 car owners from 2014 were reviewed, indicating problems they experienced within a year after purchasing the car. The overall quality of the car is deduced from the number of breakdowns per 100 units, respectively, the lower the indicator, the more reliable the car. In total, the study described 177 breakdowns, grouped into 8 main categories.
According to experts, the audio / communication / entertainment / navigation category is the most problematic. The total number of breakdowns in this category is 22% of all. Most often, users complain about poor Bluetooth connectivity and the inability of the system to correctly recognize voice commands. A newcomer to the top 10 automotive problems of 2017 is battery failure.
For the sixth consecutive year in Lexus leads the ranking with a score of 110 out of 100 cars. The same number of breakdowns are observed in the cars of another premium company - Porsche. They are followed by Toyota with 123 out of 100 breakdowns - the Toyota Camry remains the leader in terms of model reliability in its category. Overall, Toyota Motor Corporation has won an impressive 10 out of 18 awards; this is the highest number in all the years of the ranking. The fourth place was taken by Buick (126 breakdowns per 100 cars), and the fifth - by the German Mercedes-Benz (131 breakdowns).
Hyundai continues to work with itself. If according to the results of research in 2016, cars of this brand had 158 breakdowns per 100 cars, then their number significantly decreased and became equal to 133. As a result, Hyundai jumped from 19th place to sixth. It should be added that Dodge and Ford also worked on themselves, which, compared to 2016, reduced the number of breakdowns by 21 each, as well as Land Rover, which reduced their number by 20.
A complete list of the most reliable cars of 2017
Judging by the results of the rating, it turns out that the owners of cars produced in 2014 experience fewer problems than in the industry as a whole. If the average number of breakdowns per 100 cars was 156, then for cars of 2014 it is less - only 134.
According to Dave Sargent, vice president of J.D. Power, the reason is that buyers are increasingly refusing to buy cars with a bad reputation. Manufacturers can no longer afford to sacrifice quality for profit. Also experts J.D. Power found that, along with brand loyalty and advertising, a key driver of auto sales growth was its high reliability over a long service life. For example, the brand Toyota - Highest in non-premium rankings - has an average of $ 750 more per car sales than the market average.As a result, that $ 750 per car has resulted in more than $ 1.3 million in benefits for the company alone for cars produced in 2014.
Although, of course, luxury cars are of excellent quality, but the money on the market is made in the mass segment. So every year there is less and less chance that buyers will spend money on an unreliable car.