By David Welch June 17 (Bloomberg) -- Ford Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. both set records for their namesake brands in the annual J.D. Power & Associates automobile-quality survey, with Ford making its first foray into the top five performers and Toyota dropping to its worst ranking since the report began.
Toyota fell to 21st place from sixth in the Westlake Village, California-based market-research firm’s initial quality report, which measures consumer complaints in the first 90 days of vehicle ownership.
High scoring brands do a better job of keeping customers, with owners of cars in the top quartile buying the same brand 59 percent of the time while brands in the bottom quartile keep just 44 percent of their owners, J.D. Power said.
“Toyota’s problems were directly related to the recalls. This will certainly hurt their image a bit,” said David Sargent, J.D. Power’s vice president of global vehicle research. “For Ford, this is the culmination of nine years of improvement.”
The fifth-place ranking for Ford, the eponymous brand of the Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker, makes it tops among mass-market brands. The top four performers were luxury brands: Porsche AG’s namesake vehicles, Honda Motor Co.’s Acura, Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz and Toyota’s Lexus, the market-research firm said.
Toyota vehicles, which comprised the bulk of the parent company’s recall, saw problems per 100 vehicles rise to 117 from 101, J.D. Power said today. That pushed the brand’s scores below the industry average, 109 problems per 100 cars in 2010, for the first time in the survey’s 24-year history, J.D. Power said.
Owners of Toyota’s cars complained mostly about the parts involved in the recalls, such as brake pedals and floor mats, Sargent said.
‘Improving Their Reputation’
Sargent said he expects Toyota to improve from this year’s results because the company likely will remedy in 2011 model- year vehicles the problems that led to the recalls.
“What will be tougher is improving their reputation,” Sargent said.
Toyota Motor President Akio Toyoda said in a May interview that scrutiny from inside and outside the company has been a “good lesson” and he expects the carmaker to emerge stronger after the recalls. The problems may be connected to Toyota’s rapid expansion as it grew to become the world’s largest carmaker, he said.
Toyota’s top-shelf Lexus brand finished fourth in the survey with 88 complaints per 100 vehicles, down from first place with 84 last year.
The Japanese automaker made some achievements in this year’s report: Including Lexus models, the company took first place in six of 20 vehicle categories, more than any other manufacturer. Ford, not including Volvo; Honda and GM vehicles each took first in three vehicle categories.
Below Average
Jeep and Chrysler brands from Chrysler Group LLC, based in Auburn Hills, Michigan, performed better than last year while failing to meet the industry average. Chrysler finished 23rd, with 122 complaints per 100 vehicles, Jeep ranked 27th and Dodge was 28th. The automaker is controlled by Italy’s Fiat SpA.
Of Detroit-based General Motors Co.’s four brands, only Buick reported fewer problems than in 2009 and all GM brands finished below the industry average.
Cadillac tumbled from third place last year with 91 problems to 13th this year with 111 problems. Cadillac’s new SRX crossover sport-utility vehicle performed worse than the luxury brand’s older vehicles, dragging its results down.
Carmakers often encounter more problems with models in their first year of production, Sargent said.
Chevrolet dropped from ninth place last year with 103 problems to 14th with 111 problems, and truckmaker GMC fell from 18th with 116 problems to 25th with 126 problems.
Production Increase
On the same day that GM and Toyota were given lower scores on the J.D. Power report, the two companies announced they are increasing production.
GM said it will run nine of its 11 U.S. assembly plants during the customary summer shutdown from June 28 to July 9 to meet stronger demand. That will add as many as 56,000 vehicles to production, the company said.
Toyota, based in Toyota City, Japan, said it would resume construction of a plant in Blue Springs, Mississippi, that was halted in December 2008 when car sales slumped.
