Detroit is building decent cars again. In fact, American brands claimed three of the top five spots in a major survey of customer satisfaction among new car buyers.
The New York Times reports, “The scores for all three Detroit companies rose in the 2009 American Customer Satisfaction Index, which is being released on Tuesday.” GM’s luxury division, Cadillac, tied Lexus for first place in the survey, “while Buick and Lincoln-Mercury placed third and fourth.” The survey, conducted annually by the University of Michigan’s National Quality Research Center (NQRC), is based on interviews with 80,000 consumers. This year’s study, the Times notes, was conducted “during the time when Chrysler and G.M. were filing for bankruptcy protection and receiving tens of billions in emergency loans from the government.”
While Americans were generally more satisfied with all three major U.S. automakers, some performed better than others. In a press release, the University explains, “With Ford leading the way, Detroit improves much more than its Asian competitors. General Motors, with less of an improvement, is not far behind. Chrysler also improves, but still ranks a distant third in customer satisfaction compared to its domestic rivals.”
Skeptics might want to note, however, that even the study’s authors provided some caveats. Automotive News explains, “Part of the Detroit 3's increased satisfaction stems, oddly, from declining sales. As less-satisfied customers don't return to automakers, the remaining customer base is smaller but more satisfied.” Lead study author Claes Fornell, however, sees that development in positive terms. “This is going to be more sustainable than having a large, diversified mass of buyers, who tend to be less satisfied than the customers of competition,” he said. “Not only is a smaller, more-satisfied customer base less difficult to grow, it is also much easier to defend.”
The full table of results, including trends since 1996, is available at the NQRC website.
If you're in the market for a new car, check out the U.S. News rankings of this year's best cars as well as this month's best car deals.
