General Motors announced that the Chevy Spark was once again ranked as the car with the highest customer satisfaction in South Korea, consolidating its position as the most appreciated light vehicle by consumers in the Asian country. Chevrolet‘s minicar ranked first in the compact passenger car category of the 2021 Korean Customer Satisfaction Index (KCSI) that was just released.
In fact, the Chevy Spark has ranked No. 1 in customer satisfaction for seven consecutive years in South Korea – the home country of the model manufactured exclusively at the GM Changwon plant. The recognition of the Spark in the 2021 KCSI comes a year after the vehicle led the last edition of the customer satisfaction index in the South Korean market, published in October 2020.
“The Chevy Spark, which has been a leader in the domestic compact car market for a long time, has once again been recognized for its product competitiveness and ranked first in customer satisfaction for seven consecutive years,” said Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Service at GM Korea, Cesar Toledo, in a statement. “The New Spark will capture the attention of customers in the future with world-class safety and product quality, as well as sensuous exterior color and advanced convenience specifications that exceed the class of cars,” he added.
Notably, the Chevy Spark is Korea’s most customer-satisfied car since the launch of the current third-generation model in 2015, which transformed the concept of accessibility mobility in the Asian country. The Spark is the only one in its class to receive the highest grade in the Korea New Car Assessment Program (KNCAP) crash safety rating and introduced advanced safety systems for the first time in its segment.
Established by the Korea Management Association Consulting (KMAC), the KCSI is a survey that assesses customer satisfaction levels for products and services for each local industry since 1992. This year, the Chevy Spark obtained a score of 84.6 points out of 100, beating the Kia Morning – its closest rival. Furthermore, overall satisfaction and repurchase intention were particularly high at 88.9 and 88.5 points, respectively.
The most prominent factors that made the Chevy Spark outperform every competing model in South Korea were driving stability, interior and exterior finish, interior and exterior design and styling, as well as the multiple pricing options offered to satisfy the needs of a wide range of customers. This is a very remarkable achievement, as the Spark is in the latter part of its business cycle.
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Comments
Not happy with their Hyundais and KIAs
Ain’t that a shame
Yea guess they prayed on making this decision
Spark actually looks good!
Once upon a time GM couldn’t build a compact to save it’s life and this is how the Japanese got into America.
Now no one is better at this (Spark, Encore GX, Trailblazer) than GM in part due to the knowledge it gained from S Korean operations. I hope GM doesn’t up and quit S Korea as it has so many markets!
I’m pissed gm actually makes something that wins awards for a vehicle that I have totally no interest in.
As a US based owner of a 2021 chevy spark 1Lt . I find it a good car. It is only slightly bigger than the 2008 Daimler-mercedes Benz gas engine Smart Fourtwo car I bought in 2019. The biggest difference between the two cars are,1) the engine is in the front of the Spark instead of the back like the Smart Fourtwo does.. Having the engine in the front of the Chevy Spark makes it easier for repair shops to diagnose engine problems and fix. In the Smart Fourtwo having the engine in the rear of the car , means that the repair shop and repairmen must have the right skills and tools to fix an engine problem because it is harder to access the engine of the Smart Fourtwo. 2) though the back seat in the Chevy Spark does not give you much room to have two passengers that are older than an 11-12 year-old child at least there is a backseat which the Smart Fourtwo lacks. And there is in the Chevy Spark an actual trunk for hauling a good amount of groceries ,even if it is small, and not a space on top of the engine which is in the Smart Fourtwo which can only hold one or two bags of groceries at most.
The chevy Spark is a very capable car I easily get around 41 mpg on the highways and the Chevy Spark can go at 65-70 mph on highways for long distances despite what most reviewers think. The thing I love about my 2021 Chevy Spark is that like my Smart Fourtwo gas engine passion coupe the Chevy Spark is compact enough to easily pull into parking lot spaces with plenty of room on either side of the car in the parking spot to allow me to open my doors wide enough to get in and out without hitting cars that areparked on either side of my Chevy Spark with my car doors. This is the best car for empty nesters over 50 ,especially women ,who are tired of trying to get their aging bodies in and out of those huge SUVs they used when they had kids or their husband insisted on owning to prove how macho they are.
My only gripe is that the rear seat back doesn’t fold down like other cars because you are forced to pull up and forward the rear seat bottom to lay the seat back flat for more trunk space which means you have to move the two front seats way forward, and you canoot fold down the front passenger seat. I guess it is because of the airbags in the sides of all the seats.
I still love my Chevy Spark despite the fact I cannot fold down the front passenger seat or rear seat backs like other cars.
Smart for 2 my old lady thought that was a cute car so we talked to the rep. at the Chicago auto show for a minute and she boasted that oil changes were only required once per year or 10k miles but the engine needed to be dropped to accomplish the task.
I did not complain about gm mis-engineering for a year.
I don’t think you or budlar are being totally realistic here about the smart fortwo. I owned an ’06 diesel 450 for 10 years in northern Alberta. I drove it ALL year. I regularly put an entire full cart of groceries in the back. The service interval was 8000km or 365 days. I drove it an average of 15000km per year. I’ve never heard of dropping an engine out of a smart (gas or diesel) to change the oil. If you are depending on auto show travelling sales people for your car info you might want to reconsider your choices around that.
The servicing was expensive compared to a GM quick lube and you get what you pay for. Would you take your new Spark to the Ford dealer? Why would you expect a non-smart garage to fix it properly? At the Mercedes dealer I was greeted by name and sat down with a service advisor who explained everything that was done. No extra tasks were ever done without my approval and I never paid more than the estimate for repair.
At a GM dealer all I got was an email telling me what was wrong, estimates that were often less than my actual bill, and sometimes work done that I didn’t ask for. Never have I ever been greeted by name at a GM dealer and the only person who you talk to is the cashier as you pay to get your keys back.
A spark is 143 inches long. A 2008 smart fortwo is 106 inches long. That’s 37 inches!!! That isn’t even close to being the same size.
Also, it’s spelled “fortwo”. The purpose of the car is in the name. It’s only “for two”. I’ve never heard of anyone moaning about the corvette being a two seater. Very different cars for different purposes but they both hold 2 people. If you need to move 3 people anywhere, ever, these cars are wrong for you.
I understand everyone likes to bash these cars but there is so much misinformation about them and so many people have never even sat in one let alone drive or own one. In ten years mine never left me stranded. In 2 years of chevy cruze ownership I was stranded twice. I bought the cruze new. There is nothing worse than a buggered car at -25C on your way to work at 4am.
Apparently, the bottom rear cushions are easy to remove and install without tools. When removed, the front seats can be moved all the way back for more legroom even with the back folded down. I have a 2022 on order, but it hasn’t arrived yet so I can’t confirm this myself.