The latest J.D. Power 3-year dependability survey is out. I have colored the excellent Detroit News chart to show which brands improved and which ones got worse. A few observations.
The industry average got significantly better, by 19 problems/100 vehicles.
Luxury brands Lincoln, Acura, infinity, and Jaguar bucked the trend and fell in their ranking. Jaguar's 3yis number went up by a whopping 60 problems/100 vehicles. I'm guessing it is due to software/electronic problems.
Toyota made a good improvement, and it's young Scion brand made huge gains, 55 defects.
Hyundai improved (not suprising) but Kia fell (odd, since they are closely related).
GM, and particularly Cadillac, made big improvements. Oddly, GMC is much worse than average.
Chrysler is now dead last, with its brands taking the bottom four slots. Chrysler must to get their game up on quality (and I am sure that they know it) or they will not be able to compete.
