The best cars failed to notice to date – Part 1

J.D. Power and Associates has announced results of its 2012 Vehicle Dependability Study, and once again, Lexus was the most reliable of any nameplate. No surprise there, really. Toyota and Lexus have dominated quality-related studies for a long time.

What some might find surprising, however, is that the Lincoln MKZ tied the Lexus ES350 for most dependable entry-level premium car. Why is that surprising? Because another recent study by J.D. Power found that one in four people who avoid buying a Lincoln do so because of concerns about the brand’s reliability.

Is that unfair prejudice against a domestic manufacturer? Maybe, but more likely, it’s because perceptions are out of touch with reality. Lincoln ranks 7th out of 32 nameplates in the dependability study, higher than well-respected brands like Audi, BMW, Volkswagen and Nissan, all of which had lower-than-average dependability.

Lincoln’s not the only brand whose performance is out of whack with customer perceptions, said David Sargent, vice president of global automotive at J.D. Power. Over the past four years, models from Buick, Cadillac, Ford and Hyundai have achieved consistently strong levels of dependability, but still have relatively high proportions of new-vehicle buyers with concerns about reliability, he said.

U.S. carmakers – General Motors, in particular – have complained for years about the so-called “perception gap.” While they admit turning out some pretty unreliable cars in the past, they have made huge leaps in quality in the past decade or so, and today they argue their vehicles are a lot better than they get credit for.

The killer, if you’re one of these under-appreciated brands, though, is that 43 percent of new-vehicle buyers who avoided a particular model due to quality or reliability concerns say they based their opinions on conventional wisdom or common knowledge rather than personal experience, reviews, ratings or recommendations, according to the 2012 J.D. Power Avoider Study. Only 14 percent of people based their avoidance on prior ownership experience.

“People don’t necessarily base their decisions on research, but instead on tribal knowledge,” said Jon Osborn, research director at J.D. Power.

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Posted by Usman Khalid on Feb 28 2012. Filed under Automobiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.