Telepierre

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100828823

ParisTNDude

That's certainly an encouraging report...way to go GM!

JoesC5

Then how come Porsche has the lowest number of initial customer complaints?

bmacZO6

Joe, thanks for posting the complete survey.

Porsche does a great job as well as most of the luxury brands. It is much easier to make a high quality product when the starting price is 60 large.

Chevrolet and GM ini general deserve a lot of kudo's for this report. They build cars at a much lower price point and the survey showing their cars as are as good as they are says a lot.

Take a look at how VW is rated. When they make cars at a lower price point they don't fare too well on quality.

Telepierre

Interesting question Joe.

All J.D data seems to be rooted into surveys and of course like all surveys they may be prone to polling bias.

One obvious bias is the incredible difference in the fleet/models/platforms under survey:

Porsche: 35,043 units distributed into 5 platforms.
GM: 2,595,717 units distributed into 72 platforms.

I suppose you know where I am going with this..?

JoesC5

Look where GM's "expensive" car is.... below Toyota, Honda, Hyundai and KIA.

Maybe the reason Chevrolet is rated way above Cadillac is because Chevrolet owners realize they are driving a Chevrolet and expect parts to fall off it during the first month of ownership, thus do not report them as they would if they paid a premium for a Cadillac.

bmacZO6

And above BMW. Your point?

elegant

Strategic Vision does a lesser known, but a top quality car-industry customer satisfaction/car quality study every year. They evaluate the top ten car user categories, e.g., small car, compact car, small SUV, etc. This year GM scored the best in six of the ten car component areas, the first time for a domestic manufacturers to have the best score in even less than half of the ten areas.

GM quality is getting better and better and now leads, or is near the very top of the automotive industry in two key evaluation-company surveys.

CJJ

You've been burnt old man. Bring the heat or don't bring it at all. Hilarious. Be gone clown!! Your logic is underestimated from a large scale....

Guibo

Shouldn't really matter. This survey is not about the magnitude of problems. They are ordered as a ratio, problems per 100 vehicles.

That's possible. Or, keeping in mind that the reports says many problems nowadays are due to complicated electronics (in-car entertainment, nav, etc), it could be that a higher proportion of Cadillacs are equipped with these more complicated systems than the non-premium cars. Cadillac also has some relatively new models, the ATS and XTS, whose teething problems may have contributed (same could apply to the C7). BMW have rolled out a new 3-Series and 6-Series Gran Coupe and that could have driven their ranking down. Same with Lexus with a new IS and GS (new LS too?).
Good news for GM moving up in rankings, but that's largely due to other makers moving down compared to previous years. PP100 improved 3 points for GM, but Lexus and Cadillac, for example, each surged with more than 20 points in PP100 compared to last year. Infiniti was able to capitalize, moving up 4 places despite increasing PP100 by 9.
Longterm, it is very good news for GM. In 2005, they were below industry average (118) at 127 problems per 100. Also props to Kia. Back in '05, they tied for 21st out of 37 nameplates with PP100 score of 140.

OnPoint

Appears GM is not only trending in the right direction, its current performance is on par with, and better than, several high dollar marques.

Nice to see; especially nice to see Chevrolet above Acura, Toyota, Honda, Mercedes, BMW.

Two biggest surprises for me on that list are Nissan and Scion. Wonder what's going on there. I wouldn't have expected those scores for those two marques.

jschindler

This comment is not meant to disparage GM, but to enlighten those who may not know. It is NOT a quality survey per se. It is a SATISFACTION survey. It is well documented that Ford took a huge hit the past two years because customers had a hard time figuring out how to use the "My Touch" system. There were no quality problems with it, it work as it was supposed to - they just were not "satisfied".

Zymurgy

Joe, you obviously failed to actually read the article as the answer to your question is right in the article:

Rad22

I have always been a buyer of German cars for years. My current DD is a 2010 S550. I have a C7 on order...my personal first Chevy. Spin it any way you like, but these are my own personal observations and opinions:

1. My wife is entering the 3rd year of ownership of a Chevy Volt. Other than the initial recall for battery protection mods, it has never been back for ANY problems...none...30,000 miles. It is well built, well engineered and a fine car that has delivered over 100 mpg through it's life. We both love it.

2. The Corvette purchase has had me in and out of the showroom several times over the past few months and, while waiting for my salesman, I've perused their products. They are really nice. Fit and finish are obviously far improved over just a few years ago. Materials and surfaces are on par with some European competitors.

3. My salesman insisted I drive a new Impala (LTZ2?? I think...top of the line...V6...about $40K) just for the fun of it..."take your wife to lunch in it", he said. I was blown away, as was my wife...utterly and completely. Quiet, powerful, agile and with an interior rivaling any BMW 5 series or Mercedes E Class. Great electronics, comfortable seating, lots of room...all in all a tight, well-conceived and well-executed package. I would consider buying one...seriously.

4. Can't wait to see/drive the SS. Who knows? I might trade my Merc.

Sin City

Wow I'm in shock Scion is below Fiat for last place.

Anyway... good for GM!

Daekwan06

Not only that. But 80% of all Porsches sales are 4 door non-sport cars. Meaning its biggest sellers are the Panamera & Cayenne. The Cayenne is 60% of Porsches sales.. meaning every 2 out 3 Porsches sold are an SUV. The weakest sellers are the 911, Cayman & Boxster.

http://www.carscoops.com/2013/03/201...s-history.html

Guibo

As noted before, it wouldn't matter much what the sales makeup is for the Porsches. The rankings are a ratio of problems per 100 vehicles. If it were PP100000, that'd be something else.

If we delve deeper into the results, we see that all of their products placed at or near the top in their segments. The Boxster and 911 placed 1st in the Compact and Midsize Premium Sporty Car segments.
http://autos.jdpower.com/content/pre...lity-study.htm

From 2012:
"The Porsche 911 ranks highest in the premium sporty segment and achieves 44 PP100, the lowest PP100 score since the study was redesigned in 2006."
http://autos.jdpower.com/content/pre...lity-study.htm

And I wouldn't automatically assume that being a high-priced premium marque guarantees good quality. Were they included in these surveys, I'd wager Ferrari, Lamborghini, and McLaren wouldn't place very high. The MP4-12C had numerous electronic issues when it was released. Not hard to imagine that a boutique manufacturer from England might have come up short on a brand new car; their overall quality control budget might be what Toyota or GM spend on developing a new dashboard.

SCM_Crash

Porsche also doesn't sell even remotely as many cars. Easier to have less complaints, especially when the owners don't fess up to issues that occur.

racebum

i'll be happy when gm gets the little stuff right. fuel tank sending units, plastic clips, idler pulleys, alternators etc

unless something has changed recently all of these little things are a step behind honda and toyota

SCM_Crash

What was wrong with their sending units and pulleys? I had no issues with any of my 7 GMs.