It seems to me the APEAL study is reflecting what influences many people to buy cars (gadgety options, power everything, hair trigger throttles etc.). Which explains why anyone would ever buy a Volkswagen (see second study), and apparently their customer service generally sucks balls also.
Don't forget that JD Powers is an organization that produces satisfaction surveys on commission. My work commissioned a JD Powers study - guess what - our company did really well. What we paid for was basically a third party endorsement by a trusted brand of our company's quality. Their pretty rigorous in their statistics - but that doesn't mean there isn't built in bias. My question - who's paying JD Powers for this string of surveys?
oldtin wrote: Don't forget that JD Powers is an organization that produces satisfaction surveys on commission. My work commissioned a JD Powers study - guess what - our company did really well. What we paid for was basically a third party endorsement by a trusted brand of our company's quality. Their pretty rigorous in their statistics - but that doesn't mean there isn't built in bias. My question - who's paying JD Powers for this string of surveys?
well that explains why there was one of those graphs on the lexus salesman's desk that had lexus at the top.
FWIW, mazda was second
The initial quality thing always annoyed me. When I worked for Toyota at the Camry plant, we dropped way down the list because of a bunch of headlight bulbs from a supplier that were burning out early. Something that stupid (and not really Toyota's fault) caused the ranking to drop significantly. I also remember one year where one Taurus plant (in Atlanta I think) got the highest rating for initial quality, but the Taurus model was pretty far down the line compared to the Camry, etc. Seems the Tuarus was built in two plants. One made a great car, the other brought the average for the model way down. Better hope you got one from the good plant.
The "good" Taurus plant was Chicago. Trust me, my SHO was built in Atlanta (all SHOs were), and Atlanta cars were notorious for problems. Mine sure had plenty.
Right or not, the consumer is going to blame Toyota every time for a bad supplier part. The OEM is responsible for selecting suppliers, so they are responsible for what goes on their cars. That goes for all of them. You may consider it "stupid", but if a headlight goes out on a brand-new car, the customer will not be happy, and that's what the survey is trying to capture. The OEMs know this, which is why they are all so tough on suppliers these days.
In reply to Clay:
Headlamps are a funny one, that was one of the many many things that went wrong with my wife's old Highlander. In the first year of ownership the headlamps started to melt right in front of the bulb. When my wife took it into complain the dealer tried to tell her we'd fitted higher output bulbs and damaged them ourselves. Wrong thing to do to my wife. First she politely read them the riot act, then she politely reamed them a new you know what, then she complained to management. They fixed it and I have to say, after that they were very very very polite to her when she went in for anything.
I would have to say I pretty much ignore everything anyone says about a brand and buy what ever I want. I will say the best and most reliable cars I have ever owned were made by Ford and GM. The worst was a Nissan, but that wasn't the manufacturers fault. That was the PO. In my experience if you take care of it, it will take care of you.
Tom_Spangler wrote: Now you may carry on with why your single, anecdotal experience is more valid than a survey of 80,000-plus people.
The masses are asses 
JD Power is crap. Initial quality? Who gives a damn! How's it look/run after 150K? And how can you put a concrete number on something abstract like quality?
Twin_Cam wrote: JD Power is crap. Initial quality? Who gives a damn! How's it look/run after 150K? And how can you put a concrete number on something abstract like quality?
Umm... number of things gone wrong?
And seriously, 150k? I don't think any manufacturer wants to be responsible for a car after that many miles of potential neglect or abuse by the owner.
JD Power is far from perfect, but it's another data point. One that plenty of import manufacturers and their supporters have been happy to trumpet for years and years. In the end, everyone approaches data like this with their own set of prejudices and interprets it accordingly. This thread is perfect evidence of that!
It's the if the survey agrees with you, it's correct, if not, it's crap syndrome.
Although, it took an entire page to dis JD on their survey now that the Domestics are making a serious comeback.
I'm sure your experience with a beaten to death 150k 1989 Escort has more to do with quality now than this survey does....
Eric
I didn't know there was anything left of the dead horse to beat.
Awesome job of stirring up another tired boring subject.
Baxter has it right.
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