How do you find out which cars are the least trouble free out there? Why, you go out and ask thousands of new vehicle owners to list the problems they’ve had with their purchases in the first few months of ownership.
JD Power and Associates have been doing these studies for over two decades in the USA, and the results of their first South African survey have just been released. Some of their findings are very unexpected…
The survey just completed was an Initial Quality Study, which usually also gives a fair indication of what owners can expect a year or two down the road. The 2004 South African IQS is based on responses from more than 6Â 700 new vehicle owners who purchased their vehicles between December 2003 and April 2004.
The brand that emerged top in initial quality was Honda, with 141 problems encountered in every 100 cars sold. Next came BMW with 149, followed by Mercedes-Benz (163), Audi (192) and Volvo (224).
That little list pretty well encapsulates all the brands generally agreed to be the cream of the crop for buyers, but the names that follow aren’t quite in the order many motorists would have expected. Korean manufacturer Hyundai took sixth place with 233 faults reported for every 100 cars sold, followed by Chevrolet (nee Daewoo) (237) , Renault (244) , Jeep (250) and Toyota (265). Peugeot (268) and Citroen (285) both sneaked in just under the South African industry average of 287.
Those with below average performance were Opel (299), Ford (309), Mitsubishi (327) , Isuzu (336) , Mazda (339), Volkswagen (346) , Fiat (383) and Nissan (390). Brands that do not appear in the listings (Alfa Romeo, Subaru, Kia et al) were omitted because too few responses were received to make up a representative sample.
We now await with great interest the result of the JD Power Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) Study, due in December. This will measure the satisfaction of vehicle owners with the service they receive from South African dealers. We suspect there might be some reshuffling of the deck for that one.