Last year, both Cadillac and Buick cracked the Top 10 in the 2011 J.D. Power U.S. Vehicle Dependability Study. Buick came in 7th, finishing behind rivals such as Acura (6th), Lexus (2nd) and Lincoln (1st). Cadillac finished 9th, just behind Mercedes-Benz. Chevrolet and GMC found themselves below the industry average last year, with Toyota (5th), Hyundai (10th), Honda (11th) and Ford (12th), finishing well ahead of them.
Fast forward to the 2012 results, and things are a little different. Cadillac ties for third place with Toyota with 104 “problems” per 100 vehicles, behind Porsche (2nd) and Lexus (1st), but ahead of Mercedes-Benz (6th). Buick finds itself in 9th place, behind Lincoln (7th) but ahead of Acura (11th). So while Buick slipped slightly, Cadillac found itself upping its quality game. Unfortunately for Chevy and GMC, they again fell below the industry average. Chevy finished 13th, behind Toyota, Ford and Honda. GMC found itself at the bottom of GM’s rankings, but well ahead of Ram, Jeep, Dodge and Chrysler, which came in the last four spots.
These rankings might be brag-worthy for some automakers, but considering how much they change every year, can they really be dependable? How do you feel about the J.D. Power rankings?
Comments
GM may “scatter” across the rankings, but I see the glass as half full. Industry average problems per hundred vehicles improved from 151 in 2011 to 132 in 2012. Buick stayed steady, but Caddy, Chevy, & GMC all improved more than the industry. Toyota leads the volume players, but Chevy is right there with Ford, Honda, & Nissan. This survey makes a nice one-day headline, but as the industry gets better the differences in problems per hundred between vehicles & brands mean even less in the real world.
I never trust these. Notice how Hyundai and Kia are in totally different spots, but are yet the same company with same engineering practices? Same with GM, same with VW. Yet Chrysler, has all 4 of it’s brands grouped together in the lowest spot? Something is not right.
Chrysler didn’t pay it’s due’s on time.
lol, Probably
having worked as a warranty analyst for a holden a/c supplier (commodore) it is not hard for a cost down change to backfire through product failure in the market place, the failure may only last a few months before being fixed.
a simple change can result in hundreds of cars failing resulting in a warranty claim and a bad spot on this list,
the engineers who created these f/ups started to hate me showing up in their office, becouse i had to approve the payments for their mistake, i used to rub it in to them how many failed “this week” and how busy they were making my day.
the companys goal was to produce a good well designed product at a cheap price,
they kept me very busy