Customer satisfaction is critical to brand loyalty, but unfortunately, it looks as though the four GM brands sold in the U.S. are behind the competition in that respect, per a recent study.
According to Consumer Reports, the four U.S. GM brands (GMC, Chevrolet, Buick, and Cadillac) are ranked low by customers in terms of overall satisfaction. Consumer Reports recently released the results from its 2020 Annual Auto Surveys, which looked at data collected on 369,000 different vehicles in the U.S. The data was collected on 2018 to 2020 model-year vehicles, as well as a select number of 2021 model-year vehicles, evaluating each on customer responses to a selection of survey questions.
These questions included asking customers if they would purchase the same vehicle again, with considerations for things like price, performance, reliability, comfort, and enjoyment. These responses were then grouped together into discrete categories, including Driving, Comfort, In-Car Electronics, Cabin Storage, and Value, with a final score for overall satisfaction.
Among the four U.S. GM brands, Cadillac scored the lowest, slotting in near the bottom with an overall score of 59, including 4 out of 5 for Driving and Comfort, 3 out of 5 for In-Car Electronics and Cabin Storage, and 1 out of 5 for Value. Just above Cadillac was Buick with an overall score of 61, 3 out of 5 for Driving and Cabin Storage, 4 out of 5 for Comfort, and 2 out of 5 for In-Car Electronics and Value.
Chevrolet and GMC fared the best among the four U.S. GM brands, but not by much, with both awarded an overall score of 65. Both GM brands scored 4 out of 5 in Driving and 1 out 5 for Value, with middling scores for the rest of the categories.
Meanwhile, at the top of the list is Tesla, with an overall score of 88, followed by Lincoln with a score of 79, Ram and Chrysler with scores of 76, and Subaru and Hyundai with scores of 75.
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Comments
These questions included asking customers if they would purchase the same vehicle again. Didnt CR tell these people not to buy any GM Cars in the first place. Then ask them about cars they said dont buy…
Cadillac scores lowest, no surprise. Cadillac has no identity, abandoned their former customers and went after BMW customers shouting “look at me look at me!”. BMW customers looked at them quizzically and said “yeah?”, then kept walking.
GM nearly killed Cadillac with garbage like Fleet wood broam vinyl top and fake wire wheel covers on a ancient sloppy body on frame platform, decades behind. Then switched to homogenized front wheel drive to cut cost and not invest in there “PREMIUM” brand. GM Cadillac built behind the times crap while other PREMIUM builders you know the names looked forward and made modern cars that appealed to more than Cadillacs elderly target market, committed to following them into there final resting place and brand identity oblivion. This not FINALLY modernizing Cadillac to a contiporary status did them in NOT continuing to build traditional Cadillac junk that no one ALIVE wanted……… Now they are moving back to using front wheel drive Chevys and calling them Cadillac’s.
Lincoln has really good swag, and vision but lacks the hardware. Cadillac has the opposite. If only you could combine the two.
Ha! BMW is struggling to keep their own customers here in America at the moment. Nothing a few gesture controls won’t fix, eh? No? Cadillac offers wireless Apple CarPlay/ Android Auto standard in every Cadillac and Super Cruise is also available from 2021 CT4 to Escalade across the lineup. Cadillac EVs will be here by the next calendar year. What is BMW offering/doing in comparison here in the U.S.? Cadillac didn’t need nor want BMW’s customers who actually enjoy daily driving what feels like bricks & cement for suspension components. Cadillac has a different customer, they want the best of both worlds. Cadillac did the same thing Lexus did which was become a more driver focused car, that’s not “abandoning their former customers”. They beat BMW at their own game without replacing any of their own heritage. Cadillac certainly has their own identity, actually one of few brands that can still make that claim.
But let’s be clear, It was Cadillac’s own customers who purchased V-series models. Not sure what makes you think these sales were wowed or puzzled BMW customers whom GM was bending over backwards desperate and in hope of their attention. That’s so far off and comical.
The study shows that Ford, Tesla, and FCA have better storage and comfort than GM. The GM products are consistently great driving products. Different focuses from different companies. When you look at sales the story ain’t as clear anymore, I guarantee you that. There’s many reasons people buy, and continue to choose GM products over the competitors with better “interior storage”.
If you think people that buy GM opt out of buying GM again because Lincoln’s are more comfortable, I got a planet to sell you.
Thanks Consumer Reports, for making the Authority population just a tad bit dumber with this report. I wish they would stick to appliances. I need to know which brand of new washer and dryer set will make me happier within 3-5 years of ownership.
Please never compare BMW with Cadillac.GM has been building subpar vehicles since the early eighties.
BMW has an ethos. Tell me what is Cadillac’s? BMW has caused self-injury over the years but they will recover and they still have their reputation. Cadillac needs to come up with an original idea, not “we can do that too.” The women that buy the Caddilac crossovers don’t care about laps at the Nurburgring. At least Lincoln figured it out, regardless of what you think of their products.
Most of Cadillac’s former customers are now residing in a cemetery
I’ve personally NEVER seen anything impressive about BMW but for “some” exterior styling is nice. BMW’s are a car owners Boat. Always in the shop for something.
Not true, owned two of them. Never had a finer car.
It’s Consumer Reports…you know, experts on thousands of products. About as trust worthy as mail in ballots.
Consumer Rejects strikes again, looking at Lincoln line-up and sales tells me CR readership is finally trending downward.
Don’t get on here promoting more of the conspiracy theories and bs that an election was stolen despite the fact there has been multiple opportunities for Q-Trumplicans to provide proof of wide spread voter fraud yet they have fallen flat on their Pinocchio noses.
might it just be the dem-0-RAT judges that didn’t even want to hear the facts and stopped the cases in their tracks? There was fraud, anyone who can’t see that is brainwashed. The election system is no longer fair. Biden and Harris will be death to America and it is people like you who are to blame. Gas will go sky high, taxes will be raised, Dow will go down, illegals will pour into the country and suck the economy dry. Dem-0-RATS love poor people, and everything they do is to create more poor people. Poor people will do as they are told or they do not eat.
All the conservative judges and justices who refused to consider the voter fraud evidence were corrupted by liberals.
Except when GM ranks at the top, then you’ll be singing their praises. Right?
uhhh looking at the numbers for other brands will make you scratch your head with disbelief…. cough…. Chrysler. However, how come there are only 2 models for Buick and Cadillac??
No pay no play! They’re clearly in the pocket of certain companies. Chrysler aka Fiat trash very much satisfies some people apparently! If you believe that…
CR is an independent nonprofit. No company pays them anything.
IIRC, they only talk to subscribers about their experience. So, wouldn’t this be a targeted rather than random study?
CR is like mail in voting. Anybody who subscribes gets a ballot and can lie about any car they say they have and trash cars they DON’T have like voter fraud. It’s totally fake like our election system and liberally biased like the news.
Right, and all the readers are banding against GM. It’s a conspiracy man!!
I’m not so sure about that anymore. You go to their website and they “help” you to shop by having links to Amazon and to several other companies. No one can tell me that they aren’t getting some sort of a vigorish for having these links. They also now have contests, raffles, and giveaways. This is not the consumers reports of the 1950s and 1960s. I dropped my subscription long ago.
Case in point, look at some of their home appliance ratings. They rank some brands very very highly, but then they print their own subscribers complaints and praises of these appliances. Many of the ones that CU ranks highly the consumer ranks low.
CR reader surveys are as legit as a dead person’s mail in ballot.
They ranked TESLA first and it’s got more quality problems then a Chinese Ford!
Seems to me their sample size was pretty low if it only captured 2 Cadillac models and only 2 Buick models. For all we know, that relates to 2 customers for each brand based on that sample size. I’d take this with a grain of salt.
This is again another CR survey that is very unscientific and not close to be accurate other than saying this is what a limited number of CR subscribers that just happen to own a GM model feel about it.
This would be like going to a Forum site for a particular model of GM vehicle and finding out that most love their vehicle.
Hmm Ford, Kia, Toyota, Honda and Mazda are missing here?
click on the link and you’ll see all the brands you listed.
Ram & Chrysler have customers with bad tastes to start with. Of course their scores where slightly higher.
CR again. I stand by what I said in yesterdays story. They are very suspect and biased.
CR is really a front for the DNC.
Amazing that JD power has consistently rated GM Cars higher than Ford, with a much larger sample size.
I never believed CR from the first day they started reviewing Electronics. They know nothing about good Stereo systems and are always looking at the best buy and never really understanding what good quality sound is.
The cars they say are bad in this article, I have personal friends with those cars and they are great. Every time I owned a Chrysler car it had terrible body integrity. Every time I owned a Ford it had a terrible automatic transmission. Just my opinion.
JD Power is even worse than CR. Their business model is to massage the data to make everybody the top in something then sell the rights to the carmakers for advertising. Every award used in an ad is paid.
JD power can be bought by anybody. CR is a front for a climate action PAC. Our elections are rigged and Trump’s win was stolen. But we will get it back in 24. Patriots don’t die, Fords and golf cart batterys do.
Consumer Reports strikes again! GM cannot win with that organization.
Huge numbers of Lincolns are owned by Ford employees/retirees. Go figure!
Based on my experiences with my local Chevrolet dealer’s service department makes me never want to buy another Chevy.
Import dealers are worse.
Another reason I never renewed my subscription to CR
hated my new GMC truck. Seats are cheap and squeak when my dog sits in it , annoying . The cheap tilt column was unbearable , I took it out and took me about 60 hrs. to replace it with a tilt wheel what a difference all my friends hate their column too, now want me to change theirs. Have bought at least 15 new GM cars and trucks corvette to Impala and will not buy a new vehicle of any brand with that cheap tilt column. Built a new corvette and there it is again , guess no new vette!
@Charlie: WHAT??
@Dan Berning: The smoker you drink, the player you get.
This “CR Survey” business reminds me a lot of our US Government, very convoluted, very confusing, and as always has many truths and as many non truths given out at various times. Whom do you believe? In my humble opinion, GM has always been a “creature of habit”….that is, they follow the same structure when building all of their vehicles. GM’s over all view of the auto market place seems to be the same, year after year and it’s been this way since the 1970’s when GM developed it’s Mantra that is still in use today, quite simply “we build products that are just good enough”. Except for possibly the new C8 Corvette, GM seems to be content with building vehicles that reach a certain plateau as far as overall design and build quality, while not necessarily bad, it is far from “great”…and that to me is very puzzling as GM can, with its vast amount of people within the corporation and access to the very latest in computer and world wide information abilities still build vehicles that cannot excel beyond what GM feels is “competitive” in each segment of the marketplace.
Perfect example, the latest iteration of the light duty pickup truck…brand new, a totally fresh new design in 2019 and it could not even compete with the Ford F150 or the Dodge Ram pickups, in fact the Ram trucks garnered a Motor Trend Truck of the year 3 times in a row, and that was twice with an older chassis and body design! How embarrassing for GM, or so you’d think…but not really, if it bothered the “powers that be” within GM, they’d do a quick rethink, find out what makes the Ford and Dodge products superior enough to outsell the GM products, and what could be done to not only build a product that was an equal, but to simply build a superior product…it isn’t Rocket Science, it is simply applying yourselves to closely check out your competition (which they do) and see where you can improve your product (which they ought to do, but don’t) and whatever the marketplace calls for, you supply in your product, right! Simple, or so you’d think.
Ford and Dodge have more models, more “high performance models” (think Raptor and TRX) than GM…oop’s wait, GM hasn’t anything in that segment do they? Just one example of what GM needs to do to complete…also interior trim, materials, fit and finish, again, GM products are lacking, why is this? Overall exterior design…again, GM products have been criticized by the automotive press as being “about a step and half behind the competition”. Overall, the GM products are constantly being touted as being competitive, by GM itself (surprise!) but again, the sales charts tell a different story.
Oh well, that old adage about “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” seems to hold true at GM, and while GM does have some decent products, if you read the automotive magazines you’ll see when GM products are ran against others in their respective model categories, they have never come out better than “low to mid way” in each test with others products.
Again, GM using “3 three cylinders” when others are using “4 cylinders”, pathetic inferior transmission selection (CVT’s) and sub standard interior materials and design. Also, to make matters worse, GM is utilizing more “Foreign Made” products and less “Made in America” products…and yes, Canada and Mexico are “foreign countries”, you got that GM!
GM needs much better leadership than it has today, and you need to start at the top, and work down, Mary Barra isn’t as good as she thinks she is, I don’t care what her background is, if she were good for GM, she’d see that GM products need to improve not only their standing or status in the industry (never see GM being touted as being “The Head of The Class”) but to take each model of every segment and rethink what it’s going to take to not only compete but excel at building superior products…across the board! Will that happen, will GM go out and “kick ass and take names”…uh, no.
It’ll continue on, year after year, building products that are “just good enough” to stay in the marketplace but (except for the new C8 Corvette) and never be really be competitive with half of the other manufactures (like Honda, Toyota, Ford ect.) They’ll just be content to stay this way…patting themselves on their own backs, while in reality, they need to get rid of half of their “design, engineering, marketing and yes, upper management individuals” that are basically content with being a “second or third best” competitor. But don’t hold your breath, I don’t see this happening any time in the near future.
Well thought out and written. Maybe the job offered for $60K would interest you.
You’re so far off in certain areas.
I have never been a fan of the way CR gathers their car data. As a result I don’t put much weight behind their recommendations. If your buying a toaster check them out, if your buying a car JD Power is a better source.
GM is starting to lack a bit in the small item storage, especially in the lower trim trucks.
At 46k (for a base LT), my 19 Silverado LD was a bit expensive considering there’s not much special about it. No heated seats, no sunroof or sliding rear window, no power fold mirrors. However, I will note, that a friend of mines dad bought a 19 RAM 1500, and it’s been in the shop twice (once for a recall, and another for a parking sensor issue) in the same amount of time, with about 8k fewer miles (22k vs my 30k).
Same goes for our 17 XT5. There really isn’t much special about the car aside from the quiet, smooth ride, the great MPG and the awesome sound system, but its been in the shop a lot fewer times than my aunts (similarly priced but much more equipped) 18 GLC300.
I feel GM vehicles are more expensive, and incentives are harder to get, but you get a more solid vehicle. Just because your Chevy is in the shop twice for electrical issues, doesn’t mean GM builds crap. How do you know that your neighbors Ford isn’t in the shop every week for electrical issues? Or your co-workers Honda will show wear and tear much faster and lack little things like a power passenger seat.
After owning multiple Cadillacs 59 is no surprise, but so is 88 on Tesla.
It’s amazing to me that most of the comments are related to ICE vehicles and they don’t seem to consider that the General is advancing in every way to being a BEV company.
Mother Mary claimed that the company is heading toward be a BEV company some years ago and more recently the President has crafted policy to ensure that all vehicle manufacturers are going to follow that BEV format.
And how do any of you think that any of manufacturer is going to generate enough revenue to do the required Engineering and Development work of a brand new Company direction unless they scrimp and scrounge and save on the old processes for vehicle assembly and manufacturing other than increasing the price of their vehicles to beyond competitive performance. Therefore the Value equation is obviously going to suffer and be low or very low.
So for the time being the materials and assembly processes are going to be of low grade and will not compare to the other manufacturers that are not as developed in the new direction as the General is in the development of BE vehicles.
Only time will tell if their present day crappy vehicles were worth the gamble of being only just enough or just good enough to maintain the middle of the road ratings or lower.
EVs will bankrupt GM and put us ALL out of work if we don’t overthrow the eco dictator.
Get a real job already. Ronald Rump will never hire you as head House keeper of Fraud Towers or as executive producer of “Celebrity Fraud”. This isn’t going to get his attention, you simply aren’t doing enough. In order to really receive his praises, even get a “You’re special…” out of iT, you have to kill a D.C. cop or threaten to kill members of Congress. I don’t think you can compete with that, playing checkers here on GMA. Reevaluate your life, GM is Better.
P.s.
You come across as more of a Ford guy! Ashamed to read you’re a radicalized GM fan. Lol. Oh well!
Trump will be proud. Not a single EV will leave the factory.
UNITY dammit! Sounds exactly what left-wing dictators preach. You know, because dessenting opinion is not UNITY. How dare you have a different opinion than government media and the elites. Groupthink for all I say!!! Because none of us is as dumb as all of us.
The only reason I buy GM is because you can get parts anywhere, especially on the side of the road from the “broken down” GM you just passed. GM really means “Garbage Maker”!
No More of that TRASH for me.
As Barra stated……GM is now a software company ………… that just happens to build vehicles……………
Not if employee militias do something about it.
Management at GM need to take note of this and not simply shoot the messenger
The messenger is a liberal PAC.
Ross Perot died.
You lost me at “Consumer Reports”
I don’t put any stock in Consumer Reports, but I do strongly question the current strategy of 99% of auto companies. They need to get their act together fast or they are going to be left behind.
I keep pointing this out. Especially when a CR report comes out. People who respond to CR tend to be very critical! They find the faults in everything. Funny thing is that these buyers found the least amount of problems with GM products and it’s ultimately with GM where they make their purchase. It’s really easy to keep your fanboys and lock step buyers coming back, but only the best vehicles persuade the wallet of the critical buys to open. This should be looked at as a win for GM! They’ve sold more trucks than Ford this year and rule the SUV world. They also have probably one of the more open minded customer basses out there. There really is nothing worse than getting into an argument with FOR guys. Their just moronic! I can talk all day with MOPAR fanatics, but fordies???? What a pain!
If you think they are bad, you have not gotten into a conversation with somebody who owns a German car. They don’t mind paying $600 for a $200 service, because they have a Percision German vehicle. They also do my electrical failures, and various gremlins in the fuel system. Most of them are thinking, “geewhiz those American cars are far worse!”, when, IN FACT, nothing could be further from the truth.
Meantime, when they need to be picked up at the service department to be taken to work, who do they call? The guy driving the Ford or Chevy the Dodge or something similar.
Ford is nowhere to be found in this comparison category, I wonder what message is that sending???
What do you expect when they refuse to fix their junk 8 speed transmissions in their trucks. Pay 80000 dollars for a vehicle with no warranty on the transmission.
17 million cars and light duty pickups sold in 2018 and 2019, plus what was sold in pandemic 2020. My guess is 46 million total sales. Polling less than 1% is useless information.
Let’s see, cracking wheels, cracking dashes, slipping and jerking 8 speed transmissions with little to no happy customers at the
service drive exit. Makes you just want to run down and buy GM eh?