Buyers give GM, Ford top marks
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Buyers give GM, Ford top marks
Mercury, Buick shine amid overall decline; Chrysler woes persist
Robert Snell / The Detroit News
Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. bucked an industry-wide decline in consumer satisfaction, and the automakers' Lincoln-Mercury and Buick brands were tops with buyers, according to a report released today.
Lincoln-Mercury and Buick received the highest customer-satisfaction scores and topped an annual list of automakers for the first time, gains that coincided with steep declines by Korean and Japanese automakers, notably Toyota Motor Corp.
Chrysler Group LLC, meantime, continued a history of poor scores; its Dodge and Jeep brands were at the bottom of the list, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which was founded by the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business.
The report provides fresh evidence that American automakers are making progress shedding perceptions that their vehicles are inferior to imports, and the results likely will be used by the companies to try to boost sales and market share.
"It's important in that the scores provide (Ford and GM) with a very positive story to tell," said Rebecca Lindland, an analyst at IHS Automotive in Lexington, Mass. "This is the kind of thing that will be in ads and marketing campaigns. It's interesting that three of the top five are domestic brands. That's terrific."
Overall, customer satisfaction dropped 2.4 percent to 82, said the report, which measured automakers on a 0-to-100 scale.
Lincoln-Mercury topped the list with a score of 89, the brand's highest tally ever, followed by Buick at 88. Tied at 86, BMW AG, Mercedes-Benz Cars and Cadillac rounded out the top five.
"It's not a surprise to see customers responding positively to Buick and its modern family of vehicles, beginning with Enclave and continuing with LaCrosse and now the new Regal," said Buick spokeswoman Dayna Hart.
The high scores for Mercury come two months after Ford announced it would kill the 72-year-old brand at year's end.
"We've raised the stakes by redefining what it means to deliver a quality product by giving consumers more than just defect-free cars and trucks; we're exceeding their expectations," said Bennie Fowler, Ford's group vice president of Global Quality and New Model Launches.
While most domestic and foreign automakers have posted declines this year, U.S. brands suffered the least. U.S. brands climbed ahead of Japanese and Korean rivals for the first time since 2000, but still lagged European nameplates, according to the report.
"The near future looks good for Ford and General Motors," said Claes Fornell, founder of the index. "Satisfied customers tend to do more repeat business, generate good word-of-mouth and don't require greater price incentives to come back."
The report shows customer satisfaction nationwide is stalling. The 75.9 overall index score was unchanged from the first quarter. The report comes two months after Detroit's Big Three bested their foreign rivals for the first time in J.D. Power and Associates' annual study of initial vehicle quality.
Domestic brands averaged 108 problems per 100 vehicles, compared to an average 109 problems for foreign brands, according to the J.D. Power report. Ford came in fifth overall of the 33 brands, with 93 problems per 100 vehicles while Lincoln placed eighth with 106, the highest ranking of any American luxury brand.
Robert Snell / The Detroit News
Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. bucked an industry-wide decline in consumer satisfaction, and the automakers' Lincoln-Mercury and Buick brands were tops with buyers, according to a report released today.
Lincoln-Mercury and Buick received the highest customer-satisfaction scores and topped an annual list of automakers for the first time, gains that coincided with steep declines by Korean and Japanese automakers, notably Toyota Motor Corp.
Chrysler Group LLC, meantime, continued a history of poor scores; its Dodge and Jeep brands were at the bottom of the list, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which was founded by the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business.
The report provides fresh evidence that American automakers are making progress shedding perceptions that their vehicles are inferior to imports, and the results likely will be used by the companies to try to boost sales and market share.
"It's important in that the scores provide (Ford and GM) with a very positive story to tell," said Rebecca Lindland, an analyst at IHS Automotive in Lexington, Mass. "This is the kind of thing that will be in ads and marketing campaigns. It's interesting that three of the top five are domestic brands. That's terrific."
Overall, customer satisfaction dropped 2.4 percent to 82, said the report, which measured automakers on a 0-to-100 scale.
Lincoln-Mercury topped the list with a score of 89, the brand's highest tally ever, followed by Buick at 88. Tied at 86, BMW AG, Mercedes-Benz Cars and Cadillac rounded out the top five.
"It's not a surprise to see customers responding positively to Buick and its modern family of vehicles, beginning with Enclave and continuing with LaCrosse and now the new Regal," said Buick spokeswoman Dayna Hart.
The high scores for Mercury come two months after Ford announced it would kill the 72-year-old brand at year's end.
"We've raised the stakes by redefining what it means to deliver a quality product by giving consumers more than just defect-free cars and trucks; we're exceeding their expectations," said Bennie Fowler, Ford's group vice president of Global Quality and New Model Launches.
While most domestic and foreign automakers have posted declines this year, U.S. brands suffered the least. U.S. brands climbed ahead of Japanese and Korean rivals for the first time since 2000, but still lagged European nameplates, according to the report.
"The near future looks good for Ford and General Motors," said Claes Fornell, founder of the index. "Satisfied customers tend to do more repeat business, generate good word-of-mouth and don't require greater price incentives to come back."
The report shows customer satisfaction nationwide is stalling. The 75.9 overall index score was unchanged from the first quarter. The report comes two months after Detroit's Big Three bested their foreign rivals for the first time in J.D. Power and Associates' annual study of initial vehicle quality.
Domestic brands averaged 108 problems per 100 vehicles, compared to an average 109 problems for foreign brands, according to the J.D. Power report. Ford came in fifth overall of the 33 brands, with 93 problems per 100 vehicles while Lincoln placed eighth with 106, the highest ranking of any American luxury brand.
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From: The Golden State
Best I can tell, Chrysler's problems still center around it's fit and finish, especially it's interiors. Chrysler has gone up sharply in everything else thanks to a Ford-like instant monotoring of problems that develop and incorperating fixes as solutions are made.
Save Ford's walk down the dark side of gloom in the late 1990s to the start of this decade, Ford's been pretty good with quality since it started it's "Quality is Job One" days back at the start of the 1980s.
GM is still weeding out reminents of it's "Corperation" days. Newer GM upper level products are pretty good cars. As GM "the Company" replaces it's cars with newer vehicles developed under the new organization, I'd expect that same level of solid, importing beating quality to spread throughout GM's lineup as it has through Ford's.
Save Ford's walk down the dark side of gloom in the late 1990s to the start of this decade, Ford's been pretty good with quality since it started it's "Quality is Job One" days back at the start of the 1980s.
GM is still weeding out reminents of it's "Corperation" days. Newer GM upper level products are pretty good cars. As GM "the Company" replaces it's cars with newer vehicles developed under the new organization, I'd expect that same level of solid, importing beating quality to spread throughout GM's lineup as it has through Ford's.
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From: Payson, AZ USA
The one problem that GM has, in regards to quality, is the way that it is approached.
Back when Bill Ford Jr was CEO of Ford, he made huge strides in putting together the "process" for quality. It is because of the ground floor efforts that he made, that Fords quality today is where it is. Since the process is a ground floor process (as in a base process of assembly), it is built in from the beginning of design, to the release of the cars/trucks from the factory.
It has taken until these last 2-3 years, for these gains to be fully realized, and they are still on the upward climb.
In comparison, GM seems to be a much more reactive automaker. Now, one could argue that the instability of the company, from financial to managerial, has had a play in this............. and they would probably be correct. However, this is why GM's quality is hit or miss. Some are great, some are not. It makes one think that the basic process for quality, has not been put into place.
Again, this is not a slam on GM products, as most of the newer ones are pretty good (as are most new vehicles period). It is just an observation of process's, and the way that quality is approached at the two different companies.
Of course, I may be full of poop.
Back when Bill Ford Jr was CEO of Ford, he made huge strides in putting together the "process" for quality. It is because of the ground floor efforts that he made, that Fords quality today is where it is. Since the process is a ground floor process (as in a base process of assembly), it is built in from the beginning of design, to the release of the cars/trucks from the factory.
It has taken until these last 2-3 years, for these gains to be fully realized, and they are still on the upward climb.
In comparison, GM seems to be a much more reactive automaker. Now, one could argue that the instability of the company, from financial to managerial, has had a play in this............. and they would probably be correct. However, this is why GM's quality is hit or miss. Some are great, some are not. It makes one think that the basic process for quality, has not been put into place.
Again, this is not a slam on GM products, as most of the newer ones are pretty good (as are most new vehicles period). It is just an observation of process's, and the way that quality is approached at the two different companies.
Of course, I may be full of poop.
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From: Sterling Heights, MI
Every automaker, I assume, has very specific quality processes and programs in place. You speak as if Ford is somehow revolutionary or unique in this arena. GM has had its "Red X" team in place for a while now, and I am sure that is just one piece of the puzzle.
Last edited by Z28Wilson; Aug 20, 2010 at 02:44 PM.
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I am curious as to how you can come to this conclusion. GM is a "reactive" automaker? If you're talking about product development I would agree with you. But I don't see much evidence of this on the quality side.
Every automaker, I assume, has very specific quality processes and programs in place. You speak as if Ford is somehow revolutionary or unique in this arena. GM has had its "Red X" team in place for a while now, and I am sure that is just one piece of the puzzle.
Every automaker, I assume, has very specific quality processes and programs in place. You speak as if Ford is somehow revolutionary or unique in this arena. GM has had its "Red X" team in place for a while now, and I am sure that is just one piece of the puzzle.
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From: SoCal
Maybe. 
I don't think Ford has some revolutionary process in Dearborn that GM in Warren and Chrysler in Auburn Hills are not aware of or working on themselves. They all have been playing catch up the foreign brands for decades in quality and the fruits of their labor are now starting to ripen. When it comes to quality perception is almost as important as actual data.
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 13,713
From: The Golden State
Maybe. I don't think Ford has some revolutionary process in Dearborn that GM in Warren and Chrysler in Auburn Hills are not aware of or working on themselves. They all have been playing catch up the foreign brands for decades in quality and the fruits of their labor are now starting to ripen. When it comes to quality perception is almost as important as actual data.
Gloria strikes it pretty much on the head. Some years ago, Ford decided to commit a larger percentage of development costs towards interior material fit and finish. Both because not only is that where most people spend their time, but also most people's opinions are formed on the quality of a car . The interior gets people intrested in taking test drives.
Ford also developed a system where any and all warranty claims go directly to a department at Ford (within 24 hours if I remember) that compiles the information and has a direct link with engineers that are chareged with tracking patterns and getting fixes that can be instituted immediately on the assembly line. I'll look for it later, but there was a story on it some time ago.
Chrysler under Fiat management has a similar setup (one of the reasons Chrysler's holding position is revamping interiors while they develop replacement cars) where they track warranty issues and institute immediate changes.
GM still has a large number of vehicles under the old "Corperation". Although GM vehicles have been basically solid for some time, the perception of quality from consumers has been in the dumpster for years.
Why?
1. Interiors. Again, this is where consumer opinions are formed and where the customer spends most of his time. If the materials feel cheap and the gaps don't fit, and the design is questionable, it gets an image that perhaps it doesn't deserve.
2. Too much focus on cost cutting. Although GM didn't get nearly as bad as Ford did around a decade ago, GM still focused on spending the least amount of money for a "good enough" result, and NOT a class-leading result. General Motors Corperation simply did NOT aim to beat Toyota and other imports in quality. They simply took what was existing on the market, got close enough, and called it a day. The problem was that by the time the car got to market, it was 3 or more years later and Toyota and other imports had improved while GM was always behind the game. A few years behind at the least.
The Cruze is a bit better, but it's also a victim of the "Corperation" days.
It looks like the Malibu that's been around long enough to be replaced next year (and it's not even on the streets yet). It's interior quality (at least in the pre-pro model I got to sit in) is very good, but I doubt it will be class leading when the next batch of imports come out over the next couple of years. Not having a hot version is going to hurt it's reputation IMO. Still, the Cruze is closer to today's imports than the Cobalt was to imports in it's day.
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From: Sterling Heights, MI
On the interior thing - I could be mistaken but I don't really recall a point where Ford got really serious really fast with their interiors and left GM lagging far behind. I think GM and Ford have both ramped up the attention to detail in their vehicles at pretty much the same pace. Chrysler, not so much.
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