Lexus tops dependability list

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DETROIT -- Lexus is the top performer in a survey of vehicle dependability released Wednesday, but most brands showed improvement in an industry that has reached historically high dependability levels.

Consulting firm J.D. Power and Associates polled 31,000 owners of 2009 model-year vehicles and rated brands by the number of problems owners had in the last 12 months.

The poll is designed to measure long-term vehicle dependability. Problems range from stalling engines to peeling paint and electronics glitches. The top complaint in this year's survey was excessive wind noise, followed by noisy brakes.

Lexus owners reported 86 problems per 100 vehicles. Porsche, Cadillac, Toyota, and Scion rounded out the top five. The worst performers were Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, and Jaguar. Chrysler owners reported 192 problems per 100 vehicles.

Overall vehicle dependability averaged 132 problems per 100 vehicles -- an improvement of 13 percent from 2011 and the lowest rate of problems since the study began in 1990.

David Sargent, vice president of global automotive for J.D. Power and Associates, told the Detroit Free Press that the industry's improvement is surprising, especially because of what the industry was facing in 2009.

That year, during the height of the recession, auto sales sank to their lowest since 1970. That put pressure on the entire industry, especially General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC, which went through bankruptcies and received government loans.

Those difficulties may help to explain Chrysler's performance, Mr. Sargent said.

Ram, Jeep, Dodge, and Chrysler were ranked the lowest in the survey with Chrysler finishing last, even though they all scored better than they did in last year's study.

"They improved at a slightly faster than average rate," Mr. Sargent said of Chrysler's brands. "But there is no getting away from the fact that they are the four lowest-ranking brands."

Chrysler, which emerged from bankruptcy in June, 2009, with Fiat SpA as its controlling partner, is progressing rapidly in a different J.D. Power study that measures initial quality, Mr. Sargent said. "The vehicles that they are bringing out now are significantly better than the vehicles they were building a few years ago," he said.

Doug Betts, Chrysler's vice president of quality, noted that results for all Chrysler brands improved 10 percent while the industry results improved 13 percent for the 2009-model year cars, and said Chrysler has made more improvements since then.

"These results are based on cars sold three years ago," Mr. Betts said in a statement. "Since that time, we have made significant changes to our product lineup and everything else about our company's structure and the way it develops cars."

J.D. Power said 25 of 32 brands improved their scores, with Scion and Mini making the biggest leaps. Scores for Lincoln, Acura, Kia, Infiniti, Ram, and Jaguar all fell from a year ago. Buick's score stayed the same.

U.S. automakers narrowed the gap of problems per 100 vehicles compared with import brands to 13 problems from 18 a year earlier, according to J.D. Power.

Toyota Motor Corp. had eight winners at the segment level, the most of any automaker. The Yaris was the most dependable subcompact, the Prius was the best compact, and the Tundra was the best pickup.

Toyota's recalls of more than 10 million vehicles, most for unintended acceleration, began in late 2009 and may not affect results until later surveys. The Toyota brand dropped to its worst-ever ranking in J.D. Power's new-car quality study of 2010 model-year vehicles, which measures problems in the first 90 days of ownership and included some of the recalled vehicles.

In the reliability survey, Ford Motor Co. had three segment winners, including the Ford Fusion midsize car and Ford Explorer sport utility vehicle, while GM and Nissan Motor Co. had two winners each.