J.D. Powers (web sites here and here) has just released their new 2003 car quality survey. Check out the Quicken Dow Jones Newswires coverage.
What's surprising is that, while U.S. and European-made cars started out about even in terms of quality when they were new, after three years domestically made cars had just half as many reported problems as did European cars, according to their owners.
Quality at General Motors is rapidly rising to put them near the top, though still trailing Nissan and Toyota. Chrysler, owned by Daimler-Benz, beats Mercedes and yet Chrysler and Ford are slightly below industry average.
Japanese automakers continue to dominate in long-term durability. Lexus, Toyota's luxury brand, had the fewest reported problems, just 163 per 100 vehicles compared with an industry average of 273. Infiniti, Nissan's luxury brand, came in second with 174 problems, and G.M.'s Buick brand was third with 179 problems.
In terms of 3 year quality the most of the German makes and Volvo lag. Among the European makers Jaguar (owned by Ford), Saab (owned by GM), are better and Porsche has excellent quality.