After consumer complaints over quality issues in its home market of Korea and a string of recalls there, in the U.S. and other countries. Hyundai Motor Group’s president for research and development, Kwon Moon-sik and two other executives in charge of engineering and electronics have resigned. The shakeup comes as the automaker prepares some important new vehicle launches.
When the year 2025 comes around, and your sons and daughters purchase their autonomous commuter pod sans steering wheel, you may want to check the automatic brakes just to be sure they’re able to stop your children from smashing through the commuter pod in front of them, much like what happened to one customer during a test drive at a Mazda dealership in Japan over the weekend.
If you’re one of the few, proud owners of the slightly angrier-looking 2014 Camaro, or one of the many to own the slightly less angry 2013 model, you may need to send it back to correct a problem. No, not spiders this time. The recall is about stickers. That don’t stick.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has noted on occasion — as recently as last month — that the price of his company’s stock was overvalued, particularly in the short term. Seems Wall Street got the hint, bestowing upon the automaker the biggest one-month loss of market value in October since the last such occurrence in December of 2010.
If reliability is the No. 1 trait your next car must have, you may then opt to visit your nearest Lexus dealership before considering anything from the Ford dealership across the street as far as Consumer Reports is concerned.
One blah Monday morning, you’re commuting to the anonymous office park some 90 minutes away from the bedroom community you call a home in your equally anonymous Toyota Camry Hybrid, listening to yet another story about Congress kicking cans down roads and/or some wacky antics your favorite DJs had the past weekend while you take another swig of that mermaid-branded caffeinated goodness.
Chrysler announced Thursday that it will restart the second shift of workers assembling the all-new 2014 Jeep Cherokee at the Toledo Assembly Complex next Monday after a week of downtime spent upgrading the software for the SUV’s powertrain. Chrysler had idled the 500 workers, it said, because it had built a sufficient number of vehicles to launch and that it didn’t want to overwhelm delivery logistics, but it was clear from the fact that none of the built Cherokees were being shipped and that some of the idled workers were conducting lengthy test drives that quality control was a factor in the shutdown. Chrysler software and drivetrain engineers have been working on patches to the engine and transmission mapping software and the company says that it has made progress on the upgrade. Read More >
The just released American Customer Satisfaction Index, based on interviews with over 4,000 recent new car buyers, finds that car buyers are less satisfied this year than last, with the index dropping 1.2% to an industry average of 83%. It’s the first time in two years that a decline in new car buyer satisfaction has been measured, but customer satisfaction is still significantly higher than the index’s 1979 baseline of 79% of customers being satisfied.
The survey measures consumer satisfaction based on quality, purchase price, the dealership experience, and other factors. The authors of the study say that the small drop may ironically be due to past improvements in quality and customer satisfaction. Read More >
J.D. Power published its 2013 Initial Quality Study IQS, and a miracle happened: Chevrolet jumped 10 spots to number 5. The GMC brand even sits in #2. In the real world, that puts GMC and Chevrolet in Place 2, along with Lexus and Infiniti.
It’s an Audi, what do you expect?
TrueDelta recently updated the stats from its Car Reliability Survey to include all of 2012. Unless the car in question is a 2010 model (covered by J.D. Power’s VDS), statistics that indicate how it has been holding up since last April aren’t available anywhere else. Put another way, we’re currently eight months ahead of the folks with the new auto issue.
Among fairly new cars, so few received red “sad faces” (for an especially high reported repair frequency) this time around that we can cover them all here.
Toyota swept J.D. Power and Associates 2013 U.S. Vehicle Dependability Study with its Lexus brand on top and by earning seven segment awards—more than any other automaker in 2013. General Motors received four segment awards and had Buick in place 6 and Chevrolet barely above average, while Volkswagen is an also-ran. Read More >
Chinese domestic brands are being outsold by international brands in China. Their quality is suspect even and especially among the Chinese. This may not last. Domestic brands are catching up fast, says J.D. Power. Read More >
Whenever we post about a Volkswagen, comments about reliability (or, more specifically, the lack of it) inevitably follow. So few will be surprised that, with the latest update to TrueDelta’s car reliability stats, the 2012 Passat again received subpar marks. Though the big sedan’s score is better than earlier, it remains considerably worse than most other 2012s. Digging through the repair reports, a common cause emerges. Ignition coils aren’t failing. Nor are window regulators. Instead, the most common problem for these cars happens to be rattles.
Last March I shared some preliminary car reliability stats for the FIAT 500 and new Volkswagen Passat. The 500 looked very good at the time. The Passat was at the other extreme. Another three months have passed, and TrueDelta’s car reliability stats have been updated to include owner experiences through the end of March 2012. In these updated stats, the FIAT remains excellent while the Passat has improved. But in J.D. Power’s annual Initial Quality Survey (IQS), released yesterday, they’re both awful. What gives?
Yesterday, we could report that the fickle Fisker that embarrassingly broke down in Consumer Reports’ driveway, received a new battery, under warranty. Now we hear that it was no breakdown. The Fisker Karma shut itself down intentionally to prevent bigger damage. Read More >
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