American Automobile Quality

The 2005 JD Power Inital Quality Study was released this week. This report measures the total number of reported problems per 100 vehicles sold.

Once again, Lexus achieved the industry's highest marks, with 81 problems reported per 100 vehicles. What's more notable, however, is that Buick and Cadillac once again made the top 5 list of manufacturers with 100 and 104 problems per 100, respectively. Buick and Cadillac received higher quality marks than Toyota, Infiniti, Nissan, Mercedes, Acura and Honda. Overall, 5 American brands achieved better-than-average quality ratings, as did 5 Japanese, 4 European, and 1 Korean. In addition to Buick and Cadillac, Hummer, GMC, and Lincoln came in better than the industry average.

With respect to individual models, American vehicles came out on top in 7 of the 18 automobile categories, including all three pickup categories, entry midsize sedan, premium midsize sedan, and large sedan.

Perhaps this report will help dispel the notion that American cars do not match the quality of Asian or European competitors.

As an aside, both of my vehicles (Chevrolet Suburban and Lexus IS 300) came out #1. To date, the Suburban has proven to be the more reliable and better made vehicle.