Holden & Ford Again Fail On Quality In The Latest Satisfaction Survey

[JoeT]

Locals Lag On Quality

Richard Blackburn
17 August 2007
www.smh.com.au

Another car owners' satisfaction survey has been made public, writes Richard Blackburn.

Japanese brands have come out on top in a survey of car owners by one of the world's leading market-research organisations.

Mazda ranked No.1 in the survey of West Australian motorists, commissioned by the Royal Automotive Club of Western Australia and conducted by JD Power and Associates.

Honda, Toyota, Subaru and Nissan filled out the top five places in the survey, while Ford and Holden finished below the industry average. The survey rates vehicles in four categories: quality and reliability (33 per cent weighting), vehicle appeal (34 per cent), ownership costs (25 per cent) and satisfaction with dealer service departments (8 per cent).

The main rankings were based on vehicles up to three years old, although the survey also looked at vehicles four to six years old and older than seven years.

Mazda, though it tops the survey for late model vehicles, slips down the order on older cars, dropping to sixth out of the 10 brands included in the survey. Honda is ranked No.1 for the older vehicles, followed by Subaru.

Hyundai and Kia finished at the bottom of the survey, although Hyundai ranked higher than Ford and Holden on vehicle quality and reliability.

The survey is the first vehicle customer satisfaction survey published by JD Power in Australia.

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Holden Rates 15th In Customer Satisfaction Survey (July 2007)
Holden & Ford Fail Quality Test, Says Survey (May 2007)
Holden Ranks 11th In National Customer Satisfaction Survey (November 2006)

[hq308]

I'm confused
How can you have manufacturers submit their own results and then rate them?
What sort of survey is that? Shouldn't they be surveying end users?
Who's to say that any of the results are accurate? I'm sure a lot of us have seen or heard about examples of manufacturers denying and/or covering up warranty problems. Mazda is a classic example, a friend of mine's brother owns a 3 year old Mazda ? (I think from memory it was a 3) and just outside of the warranty period some fasteners came loose in the intake and went through the engine and trashed it. He had it towed to Mazda and when they looked at it they said they'd never seen or heard of that problem before and that it was going to cost him a ridiculous amount to fix it. Now my friend's brother isn't very knowledgeable about cars and was prepared to cop it on the chin, but my friend and his father are car guys and decided to do a bit of research. After about 2 minutes searching on the internet they found the same model car was the subject of a massive recall in the U.S. for the same problem! They took this information back to Mazda who still denied knowledge of the problem but they fixed it under warranty anyway. But that's still not the end of the story, my friend's father recommended that he get Mazda to change the timing belt while they were fixing the engine (which he did and paid for it to be done) He picked the car up and after about 40km's of driving it stopped due to timing belt failure. Now that's Mazda quality for you and I'll bet that wasn't recorded in the statistics they supplied.

[redTT]

Holden has been the biggest seller for the longest time..............doesnt this indicate something?

[ford&holden]

Originally Posted by hq308

I'm confused
How can you have manufacturers submit their own results and then rate them?
What sort of survey is that? Shouldn't they be surveying end users?
Who's to say that any of the results are accurate? I'm sure a lot of us have seen or heard about examples of manufacturers denying and/or covering up warranty problems. Mazda is a classic example, a friend of mine's brother owns a 3 year old Mazda ? (I think from memory it was a 3) and just outside of the warranty period some fasteners came loose in the intake and went through the engine and trashed it. He had it towed to Mazda and when they looked at it they said they'd never seen or heard of that problem before and that it was going to cost him a ridiculous amount to fix it. Now my friend's brother isn't very knowledgeable about cars and was prepared to cop it on the chin, but my friend and his father are car guys and decided to do a bit of research. After about 2 minutes searching on the internet they found the same model car was the subject of a massive recall in the U.S. for the same problem! They took this information back to Mazda who still denied knowledge of the problem but they fixed it under warranty anyway. But that's still not the end of the story, my friend's father recommended that he get Mazda to change the timing belt while they were fixing the engine (which he did and paid for it to be done) He picked the car up and after about 40km's of driving it stopped due to timing belt failure. Now that's Mazda quality for you and I'll bet that wasn't recorded in the statistics they supplied.

I'm not understanding these surveys too well myself...

I'm curious what model Mazda had the timing belt issue? i thought most newer 4cyl engines were converting from belts to chain drives?

[ford&holden]

Originally Posted by redTT

Holden has been the biggest seller for the longest time..............doesnt this indicate something?

No, not at all.
Top selling cars are not always the class leaders...

[asim]

This definitely isn't very positive sounding for the domestics in the Australian market. It looks like Australia is 5-10 years behind the US. The US domestics were lagging behind the imports around 5 to 10 years ago, but right now they have essentially caught up. Maybe we will see that same pattern emerge in Australia down the road.

[Robert Ryan]

The US domestics were lagging behind the imports around 5 to 10 years ago, but right now they have essentially caught up. Maybe we will see that same pattern emerge in Australia down the road.

Got some news for you, they are still way behind:.what is the best selling car in the US? What is the fastest growing make of Pickup in the US?How many US cars and Trucks are exported to markets outside the US and Canada? Who of the "Big 3" does not have to fear going bankrupt? What sector of the US Automarket has increased it's market share dramatically?

[mitchikins]

Unfortunatley i can't say i'm at all suprised with these results....

Just drove my Aunties 2 week old berlina and although i loved it to bits, my dad didn't. Naturally i called him mental and persisted that he had no idea what he was talking about. I say this because he said he preffered his 2.4 Accord... and while the accord had the niceties of leather (and fake plastic leather....) i couldn't see the upside of his argument. Apart from the slightly annoying whine of the 3.6 in the VE i couldnt find anything wrong..... until i opened and closed the doors (and just about everything in the car that opens and closes) with a critical view.

The feel of the door handles was just a bit wrong, the auto locking mechanism was loud and stupid sounding, and the closing of the doors still produced the same (albeit slightly, oh so slightly different) sound that i had grown acustomed to with every commodore we have owned, or a reli has owned. The reason is bad is that this means it still sounds like a VN, a VS, a VX, a VY. Even the elcheapo Honda gives a satisfying thud (in adition to a smoother handle pull). The Honda is smoother, by the tiniest of margins, and the plastics are better, again, by such a small amount it seems a shame.

Now i do realise that alot of you are going to say these dont matter, the commodore is a better handling car, and you'd be right. You'd also tell me that real enthusiasts dont give a rats about the sound of the door locking mechanism in such a fantastic drivers car. But the unfortunate thing is that the vast majority of people aren't like us, they are like my dad. They would not buy a car because the placement of the boot release is stupid or the "phone charger" is not where he wants it to be (not that these stopped him from buying a car before, but he does whinge)

There are so few things in the car that made him whinge and say he preffers his Accord more, and thats my big dissapointment. These little things do leave an impression on certain customers that potentially would not buy, or buy again, because of a perception of bad quality.

If Holden made the doors close with the satisfying clunk of the Accord, made their servo that did the doors silent, and just got that little bit extra in the quality of plastics and the overall fit and finish it really would be a BMW, for half the price, it really would.

[E. Haskell]

Originally Posted by Robert Ryan

Got some news for you, they are still way behind:.what is the best selling car in the US? What is the fastest growing make of Pickup in the US?How many US cars and Trucks are exported to markets outside the US and Canada? Who of the "Big 3" does not have to fear going bankrupt? What sector of the US Automarket has increased it's market share dramatically?

Maybe it's just me or did Mr. Robert Ryan take asim's comments WAY out of context with enough sky-is-falling drama to make the kids from Capeside jealous? I believe asim was referring to quality (the subject of this thread). For more information, refer to JD Power and Associates' data.

[mikmak]

Good post Mitchikins. You are right as far as it doesn't concern me and likewise with perception problems. It's a shame that these things are of prime importance to mainstream consumers but at the same time, I have heard that the Accord isn't exactly a slouch when it comes to the handling department.

[Robert Ryan]

I believe asim was referring to quality (the subject of this thread). For more information, refer to JD Power and Associates' data.

I know Quality was an issue he was referring too, but there are several other issues that need to be addressed, before he can claim" We have caught up with the imports".
As regards Quality, most US reviewers were very impressed with the GTO build quality as regards US GM vehicles.. What the problem here is , the Japanese have even better built cars(ones directly from Japan) than Holden and Ford and it is a relative quality comparison.