Korean Brands Top Performers on J.D. Power Initial Quality Study

DETROIT – Korean automaker Hyundai’s Kia and Genesis brands place first and second in this year’s J.D. Power Initial Quality Study.

Kia repeats in the No.1 spot from 2016, while newcomer Genesis, Hyundai’s premium marque and in its first year on the market, ranks second.

In a situation that was common throughout this year’s survey, Kia improved its score from last year, recording 72 problems per 100 vehicles compared with 83 in the 2016 survey.

The Hyundai brand ties for fifth place with a score of 88 problems per 100 vehicles, down from its third-place ranking last year but improving its score from 92.

“The Koreans really have this initial-quality thing nailed,” Dave Sargent, vice president-global automotive at J.D. Power tells media today at the Automotive Press Assn. here. He reminds the crowd that for its first four years in the U.S. market, Kia had been dead last on the IQS.

Genesis would have been third if it were a separate brand last year, Sargent notes, as Genesis models existed as part of the Hyundai brand before the new marque was created.

J.D. Power says Hyundai is the automaker with the most segment awards in this year’s survey, although all are for Kia-brand models. Kia’s Forte, Soul, Cadenza, Niro and Sorento are deemed the least problematic in the compact-car, multipurpose-vehicle, large-car, small-SUV and midsize-SUV segments, respectively.

BMW and General Motors each had four segment winners, including the BMW 4-Series (compact premium car) and GMC Terrain (compact SUV).

Initial quality of new vehicles is at “its highest level ever, improving a significant 8% from last year,” the survey firm says, and is reflected by 27 of 33 brands and seven of eight categories in the IQS posting increases. “This is a really, really strong success story for the industry this year,” Sargent says.

J.D. Power IQS measures quality during the first 90 days of ownership via a 233-question survey. This year’s study yielded nearly 80,000 responses from February to May by purchasers or lessees of ’17 model-year vehicles.

In the brand-ranking section, filling out the top five after Kia and Genesis, the latter scoring 77 problems per 100 vehicles, are Porsche (78); Ford and Ram, tying for fourth place at 86; and BMW, Chevrolet and Hyundai tying for fifth place with 88.

The industry-average number of problems per 100 vehicles this year was 97 compared with 105 in 2016.

Brands not in the top five but scoring above the industry average include Lincoln, Nissan, Volkswagen, Mini, Buick and Toyota.

Falling below the industry average, for the first time ever, is long-time IQS leader Lexus. However, Lexus’ score of 98 is just two off from last year and one below the industry average. “It’s not that they’ve gotten worse, it’s that everybody else has gotten better,” Sargent says. “The assembly quality is still world-class, (but) there’s a lot of usability problems in these vehicles which customers are increasingly complaining about.”

Also below the industry average, in best-to-worst order, are GMC, Chrysler, Mercedes-Benz, Acura, Cadillac, Honda, Dodge, Infiniti, Jeep, Subaru, Audi, Mazda, Land Rover, Mitsubishi, Volvo, Jaguar and Fiat.

Regarding Chrysler, it had the top performing minivan, the new Pacifica. Sargent calls the new Pacifica, “Possibly the best launch from FCA we’ve seen in a decade.”

However, Chrysler’s Fiat scored 163 problems per 100 vehicles, although an improvement on its 2016 score of 174. Fiat finished second-to-last last year behind Smart, which is not on the 2017 IQS.

Along with Lexus, brands seeing their performance fall from year-ago include Audi, Infiniti, Jaguar, Mitsubishi and Toyota. Most declines are mild, although Jaguar’s score worsens by 21 problems per 100 vehicles. Sargent puts Jag’s poor score down to it launching most of its high-volume models last year.

Detroit Three brands make some big gains this year, with Ram and Ford among the most-improved in the survey, with 28 and 16 fewer problems per 100 vehicles, respectively. Mini, Acura and Volvo also posted big gains.

And in what it classifies as a possible warning sign for a future that supposedly will comprise autonomous vehicles, J.D. Power says the only category to score worse this year than last year is what it calls “features, controls and displays,” which include the “building blocks of autonomous technology.”

Seeing more problems as noted by survey respondents is adaptive cruise control, a technology that can automatically adjust vehicle speed based on how fast or slow the vehicle ahead is traveling. Other technologies also seeing more woes in 2017 than 2016 are lane-departure warning, collision avoidance/alert and blindspot warning.

Says J.D. Power: “Consumers will need to be convinced that these systems are foolproof before they will give up driving control to autonomous vehicles.”

The audio/communication/navigation/entertainment category, commonly known as infotainment, has been the source of many consumer complaints in recent years, but J.D. Power says it is the most-improved category from the 2016 survey. Its score of 22.8 problems per 100 vehicles is 2.7 better than last year. Although they have shown improvements, Sargent says voice recognition and Bluetooth phone pairing remain the top two problems not only in the infotainment category, but industry wide on IQS.

J.D. Power also bestows plant-quality awards as part of IQS, based solely on defects and malfunctions, not design-related issues.

Toyota’s Kyushu 2 plant in Japan, home to the Lexus ES and RX, again takes the platinum award, repeating its score from last year of 15 problems per 100 vehicles.

In the North and South America region, General Motors’ Fort Wayne, IN, plant, home to the Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups, wins gold with 17 problems per 100 vehicles. Toyota’s Georgetown, KY, 3 and 1 lines, home to the Lexus ES and Toyota Camry and Avalon, are silver and bronze winners.

In Europe and Africa, Porsche’s Leipzig, Germany, plant that builds the Macan and Cayenne takes gold with 17 problems per 100 vehicles.

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