2019 JD Power Initial Quality

[wag123]

Originally Posted by Quattro Pete
Like you stated, most cars now don't have major (obvious) defects, so the focus is now on the minor ones. According to JD Power, industry average is around 100 problems per 100 vehicles. This means some cars may have no such defects at all while others may have several. If yours was perfect, you were more lucky than others, or you just did not notice them.
Discovering defects (if they are even "defects", often they are vehicle "characteristics") and complaining about them are also subject to a brand's owner expectations. Some brands have a higher percentage of owners who are more likely to complain about any and every little thing. A brand's owner expectations can result in either a much higher or much lower reported defect rate, depending on the brand.

 

[PimTac]

Originally Posted by Quattro Pete
Originally Posted by PimTac
Initial quality might have been useful in the seventies and early eighties when cars were on dealers lots with missing parts and obvious defects.

Obvious defects are easy to spot and correct by the dealer, even before a client takes delivery, because, well, they're obvious. I suspect this JD Power study looks at the less obvious ones that are only discovered once the owner has had some time to spend with the car. For example, would you easily notice your heated steering wheel was not working at the time of purchase, if you purchased your vehicle in the middle of summer?

My car has heated rear seats. I've owned it for over a year and I haven't yet verified if they actually work. It's things like that.

Like you stated, most cars now don't have major (obvious) defects, so the focus is now on the minor ones. According to JD Power, industry average is around 100 problems per 100 vehicles. This means some cars may have no such defects at all while others may have several. If yours was perfect, you were more lucky than others, or you just did not notice them.






I might be in the minority of car buyers. I actually check the fit and finish inside and out. I play with the controls, give things a jiggle and so on. I do take a long time and I've noticed the salesman gets impatient. Anyway, it's my money.

 

[dishdude]

Originally Posted by PimTac

I might be in the minority of car buyers. I actually check the fit and finish inside and out. I play with the controls, give things a jiggle and so on. I do take a long time and I've noticed the salesman gets impatient. Anyway, it's my money.


I doubt there are any members of this site that don't do the same.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted by PimTac
I might be in the minority of car buyers. I actually check the fit and finish inside and out. I play with the controls, give things a jiggle and so on. I do take a long time and I've noticed the salesman gets impatient. Anyway, it's my money.

I try to do all that as well; however, in modern cars a lot of features/functions are now hidden behind various infotainment/touch screen menus that may require significant amount of study time before you find it all and test it all out. There are no physical buttons that just perform a single function, like in the past. My owner manual is 500 pages long, and infotainment/nav is another 200 pages long.

Say you special order a car and put down a deposit. 8 weeks later you go to pick it up, and you find it has a small blemish on one of the interior panels. Do you just not buy the car and ask the dealer to reorder it and wait another 8 weeks? Or do you let the dealer replace the panel? If the latter, that would count as a "problem" in the eyes of that JD Power study, I'm sure.

 

[PimTac]

Originally Posted by Quattro Pete
Originally Posted by PimTac
I might be in the minority of car buyers. I actually check the fit and finish inside and out. I play with the controls, give things a jiggle and so on. I do take a long time and I've noticed the salesman gets impatient. Anyway, it's my money.

I try to do all that as well; however, in modern cars a lot of features/functions are now hidden behind various infotainment/touch screen menus that may require significant amount of study time before you find it all and test it all out. There are no physical buttons that just perform a single function, like in the past. My owner manual is 500 pages long, and infotainment/nav is another 200 pages long.

Say you special order a car and put down a deposit. 8 weeks later you go to pick it up, and you find it has a small blemish on one of the interior panels. Do you just not buy the car and ask the dealer to reorder it and wait another 8 weeks? Or do you let the dealer replace the panel? If the latter, that would count as a "problem" in the eyes of that JD Power study, I'm sure.





That's a particular situation that I've never been in.

I do take these initial quality rankings with a pound of salt. I would put more credit on a 1-2-3 year survey.