Automotive

New cars are failing at unprecedented rates, and it's getting worse

New cars are failing at unprecedented rates, and it's getting worse
The statistics suggest there's worse to come for the car industry
The statistics suggest there's worse to come for the car industry
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The US auto industry appears to be in disarray with both initial quality (problems in the first three months of ownership) and long term reliability (problems over the remainder of the first three years of ownership) in steep decline
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The US auto industry appears to be in disarray with both initial quality (problems in the first three months of ownership) and long term reliability (problems over the remainder of the first three years of ownership) in steep decline
The statistics suggest there's worse to come for the car industry
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The statistics suggest there's worse to come for the car industry
The chart reads from the most unreliable brand in the data set which is at the top, to the most reliable automotive brand according to J.D. Power's published PP100 data over the period-2010 to 2021. To make it easier to visualise the information, we've colour-coded the number of problems from red (most unreliable in data set) to blue (most reliable).
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The chart reads from the most unreliable brand in the data set which is at the top, to the most reliable automotive brand according to J.D. Power's published PP100 data over the period-2010 to 2021. To make it easier to visualise the information, we've colour-coded the number of problems from red (most unreliable in data set) to blue (most reliable).
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New cars bought in the last few years have twice as many quality problems as they had in 2010. Some well-known brands are averaging more than five issues per car – and the stats show things will probably get a lot worse before they get better.

Manufacturing a car involves choreographing hundreds of parts, most of which are created somewhere else, to be at the same spot at the same time for final assembly. Given the widespread adoption of "just in time" manufacturing methodology, it's understandable that with personnel issues affecting all manufacturing during the pandemic, and the resultant cascading supply chain issues, it would take some time for things to return to normal.

As you can see from the chart below, they haven't returned to normal, and almost certainly they are going to get worse before they get better.

It's not just the effects of the Pandemic that are responsible for the doubling of the number of problems per vehicle over the last five years, but the introduction of new technologies which are proving problematic and there are many factors that are influencing this significant deterioration in the quality of output from one of America's largest industries.

The US auto industry appears to be in disarray with both initial quality (problems in the first three months of ownership) and long term reliability (problems over the remainder of the first three years of ownership) in steep decline
The US auto industry appears to be in disarray with both initial quality (problems in the first three months of ownership) and long term reliability (problems over the remainder of the first three years of ownership) in steep decline

Each year American Consumer Research powerhouse J.D. Power publishes its proprietary Initial Quality Study (IQS) on new car brands, basing its score and ranking on the number of problems experienced per 100 new vehicles (PP100) during the first three months of ownership.

The depth and breadth of this industrial-scale research is quite remarkable with the latest poll collecting the detailed experiences of 93,380 purchasers of 2023 model-year vehicles, with each answering a 223-part questionnaire covering every aspect of ownership.

The industry average IQS score for each year since 2010 is the red line on the above chart, and the green line is the annual industry average for the company's Vehicle Dependability Study (VDS) which examines the number of problems experienced during the remainder of the first three years of ownership.

That is, the PP100 figure for the first three months of a car's lifespan (IQS score) needs to be added to the PP100 score from the VDS for the same model year to get the total number of problems experienced by owners in the first 36 months of their car's life on the road ... and that number has already doubled between 2010 and 2021.

Buying a car is an important buying decision, perhaps the the largest financial decision many people will make next to buying a home.

And new cars now have double the number of problems they had in 2010 – with some of the worst offenders averaging more than five quality issues per vehicle for the most recent years in the survey.

Hence it is pretty obvious that there's worse to come, because the IQS runs three years ahead of the VDS, and with the IQS industry average showing reliability is declining, the three year results are likely to bring more of the same increases in problems too.

In J.D. Power's press release for the 2024 U.S. Vehicle Dependability Study (VDS), it noted that, "historically, VDS model results mirror the results of the respective model year in the J.D. Power Initial Quality Study."

That's right, as once we'd assembled all the data from the press releases issued by J.D. Power for its annual IQS and VDS surveys since 2010, we could see the rate at which problems occurred in the first 90 days and the remainder of three years of ownership for each marque by year, and they don't change much. The average across all automotive marques over the last 12 years shows that 43% of problems occur in the first three months, and 57% of problems appear in the next 33 months. There's slight variation between marques, but we feel certain those chart plots are going much higher yet.

The following chart shows the average number of problems experienced per 100 new vehicles (PP100) during the first three years of ownership by brand name and year, and we feel sure you will find this as fascinating as we did. We've excluded marques for which we do not have a full data set.

The chart reads from the most unreliable brand in the data set which is at the top (Land Rover is at least transparent – there are a lot of marques that won't, don't or can't work with J.D. Power) – to unquestionably the most reliable automotive marque on the planet by a VERY wide margin: Lexus.

Over a quarter century of writing up J.D.Power's press releases, I'd sensed that Lexus (and its parent Toyota) were at the very forefront of reliability, but the raw scores and annual rankings we assembled left no doubt. As a rough rule of thumb from what we've seen so far, Lexus looks to be at least 10% more reliable than any other nameplate over the 12 year period 2010 to 2021.

In the automotive world, quality is governed by design, logistics, managing supply chain chaos, staying at the forefront of desirability ... and Lexus is doing it at least 10% better than any other marque over the last measurable decade to 2021. Its parent company Toyota is also vying with Porsche and Buick for a podium position in quality control for all the credible marques, so something is working.

The chart reads from the most unreliable brand in the data set which is at the top, to the most reliable automotive brand according to J.D. Power's published PP100 data over the period-2010 to 2021. To make it easier to visualise the information, we've colour-coded the number of problems from red (most unreliable in data set) to blue (most reliable).
The chart reads from the most unreliable brand in the data set which is at the top, to the most reliable automotive brand according to J.D. Power's published PP100 data over the period-2010 to 2021. To make it easier to visualise the information, we've colour-coded the number of problems from red (most unreliable in data set) to blue (most reliable).

Just one last point on the above chart - Land Rover, Chrysler, Volvo and Jeep are not the most unreliable brands - this is a relatively small dataset of manufacturers because it's the only data set we have. There are a lot more car makers and the vast majority of them aren't in this data set.

As consumers become armed with better information, they will be better informed to make purchasing decisions for one of the largest purchases they will ever make, and you can see quite clearly from this chart that some model years might be best to avoid if you're looking for a second-hand car.

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12 comments
12 comments
itsnotbob
Where would Tesla be on this list? Asking for a friend (whose name isn't Elon)
BT
Compare it to non-US cars, not past US cars. The sheer amount of complexity and electronics in modern cars grants both convenience and opens the door for inconvenience.
Nobody
How do manufacturers get away with problems that go on for years. Leaking intake gaskets on V6 Chevrolets, transmission problems with Ram trucks and cheap door locks on Chrysler vans. These problems went on for many years with no recalls that I know of. With so many electronics in new cars, I'm sure it will get much worse. I recently rented a new car with driver assist. It kept trying to steer me into the deep potholes that I was trying to avoid.
Trylon
Takes me back to the 1980s, when Japanese cars reigned supreme and "Buy American" was to joke to anyone who wanted a quality car.
Patrick J
rapid decline right after Trump's withdrawal from TPP and near withdrawal from NAFTA and abandoned the US's leadership role with the WTO. In other words, he left US Ford and GM in a compromised position at the very moment that they'd established global manufacturing goals. I don't think that Chrysler ever got it figured out. Yes, Covid caused supply chain disruptions but you can see, in the first chart that the problem started long before.
Rick O
"Given the widespread adoption of "just in time" manufacturing methodology" this is the biggest issue facing manufacturing today. Nobody stocks anything anymore. The federal government basically penalizes you for having saleable inventory, as you pay taxes on what you have on hand. So nobody keeps anything in stock, and companies used to rely on their vendors to have what they need to keep running. "Lean Supplier Base" is the absolute biggest failure of "modern" manufacturing. I have literally had purchasing people send an order to a vendor that had a longer lead time and higher price, because we had a "contract" with that company to get lower prices and better lead times.... It was so backward and absurd. When I questioned it, I got back "That's how things are done in industry". They are constantly removing vendors from our "approved" list to be "more efficient", because somehow lack of competition is supposed to cut costs? Laws of supply and demand have been completely turned on their head by absurd notions introduced by Kaizen and ISO standards. Efficiency and common sense have become less important than corporate buzzword BS.
Patrick J, I do agree manufacturers are having to spend too much time navigating perpetual changes in politics. But there are plenty of foreign marquees doing as bad or worse than the "big 3" from the US.
Also, anything from the 2019-2022 timeframe, I refer to as a "Covid Build". Quality is questionable, just like electronics built specifically for Black Friday specials. Rushed through with poor staffing levels. People that did show up to work in this timeframe were subjected to restrictions and shortages that made doing a good job very difficult.
TechGazer
This is why when I had to replace my last vehicle, I looked for a pre-computer Toyota. It's reliable, and simple enough I can do most if not all of the maintenance on it myself. Just the thought of a modern vehicle with all those wires and unreliable connectors--and cheap plastic parts that shouldn't be cheap plastic--seems like a nightmare.

I wonder, how many times do all the fancy safety systems prevent accidents vs how many accidents are caused by unreliability (and unrealistic expectations) of them?
Kpar
So much of this derives from the competitive nature of all the auto manufacturers (not that I am against competition!), but, in order to bring in more customers, and convince them to replace their otherwise usable cars with newer designs, the cars are being loaded with all sorts of "bells and whistles" that might be nice, but are nightmares to diagnose when things go wrong. One of my closest friends was a master mechanic (now retired) and he spent more time diagnosing problems than actually fixing them (and that's a GOOD thing- too many mechanics simply swap out parts to see if the problem goes away- the customer gets stuck with paying for parts and labor that were not needed!)
josefaber
"the more complex a device, the more likely something will go wrong"
New vehicles have gotten excessively complicated. Vehicles currently require specialized repairs & maintenance tools only available from the automaker.
The days of the 'backyard mechanic' / DIY are no longer an option.
dcris
TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Much Electronics. No one can even work on their own car anymore. Autos manufacturing has become a nightmare. I would take my 1974 super beetle over any new car (with modifications). Simple is better.
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