Survey highlights

Categories and winners in Strategic Vision Inc.'s survey of 2004 vehicles. The survey measures customers' emotional responses to vehicles as well as their driving experience and any problems they have had.


Small car (tie)

-- Ford Focus

-- Hyundai Accent

-- Mazda3



Small multi-function (tie)

-- Chrysler PT Cruiser

-- Scion xB



Medium car

-- Pontiac G6



Large car (tie)

-- Ford Five Hundred

-- Nissan Maxima



Small specialty (under $25,000)

-- Ford Mustang



Small specialty (over $25,000)

-- Chevrolet Corvette



Near-luxury car

-- BMW 3-Series



Luxury car

-- BMW 5-Series

-- Lexus LS430



Convertibles (under $30,000)

-- Mini Cooper



Convertibles (over $30,000)

-- Lexus SC430



Minivan

-- Honda Odyssey



Small SUV

-- Hyundai Tucson



Medium SUV

-- Buick Rainier



Crossover

-- Nissan Murano



Large SUV

-- Nissan Armada



Near-luxury SUV

-- Infiniti FX35



Luxury SUV (tie)

-- Land Rover Range Rover

-- Hummer H2

-- Cadillac Escalade



Compact pickup

-- Toyota Tacoma



Full-size pickup

-- Nissan Titan



Heavy-duty pickup

-- GMC Sierra 2500/3500


Source: Strategic Vision Inc.



DETROIT --Nissan Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. were the top performers in a new survey of vehicle quality, with satisfied owners praising power and styling.

BMW was the highest-scoring individual nameplate in the survey by Strategic Vision Inc., a San Diego-based marketing research firm. The tenth annual survey, which was released Monday, questioned around 40,000 owners of 2004 vehicles between October and November. The survey asked owners about their emotional response to vehicles as well as any problems they have experienced.

Six GM vehicles got top ratings in the survey's 20 vehicle categories, the highest number of any automaker.

The Pontiac G6 was the top mid-size car, while the Buick Rainier was the top mid-size sport utility vehicle and the GMC Sierra was the top heavy-duty pickup. The Cadillac Escalade and the Hummer H2 tied with Land Rover's Range Rover in the luxury SUV category, while the Chevrolet Corvette was tops among luxury specialty cars.

The ranking was news for GM, which saw its U.S. vehicle sales fall 7.7 percent in the first four months of this year. Strategic Vision said GM needs its top-selling vehicles, such as the Chevrolet Silverado pickup and Impala sedan, to get quality marks as high as specialty vehicles like the Corvette and the H2.

Nissan delivered five first-place winners and got the highest overall quality scores. The Nissan Maxima sedan tied with the Ford Five Hundred among large cars, while the Nissan Titan was the top full-size pickup. The Nissan Murano was the top crossover, the Nissan Armada was the top large SUV and the Infiniti FX35 was the top near-luxury SUV.

Strategic Vision said Nissan owners repeatedly said their vehicles gave them feelings of power, individuality, excitement and fun. Nissan's sales had a 27 percent increase in the first four months of this year.

Strategic Vision also noted that two pickups from Japanese manufacturers -- the Toyota Tacoma and the Nissan Titan -- did best in the compact and full-size pickup categories.

source : detnews

 

Well.....buying a vehicle on emotion or image is fine if you just want to impress the Jones' es down the street, but they can bite back nastily sometimes with poor quality or impracticality.
Several of the vehicles on this list are just that....vehicles good for little more than ego, impressing the neighbors, or trying to project an image with.....but are likely to suck gas or spend more time in the shop than out.

Now, having said that, I realize there are many reasons some people WANT an impractical vehicle....to impress a date, mid-life crisis, sit up high to look out over traffic, etc.......

 

Well NIssan and BMW are emotional brands, people love the cars no matter how bad the quality is(trust me, I lurk their forums).
GM well is the largest car maker, so they should have the most winners.

The Nissan Titan has been a quality nightmare, not sure how the hell it got on this list.

But congrats to all the winners of this survey.

 

I saw the headline for this poll on CNBC, "GM and Nissans tops in quality" and I was WAAAH? Then I found out Strategic Vision is best known for its political polling.

This article explains it...Lexus, Toyota Win, Lose in Survey

basically Lexus has lowest problems, and Toyota's avg 855 is close to the top 860's. The LS 430 is 910, just 1 behind top BMW 5-series with the unfortunate number 911.

But I think the survey is flawed, just because Nissan and GM owners report more problems and 'more gone right' with the car, it seems that different brand owner psychologies may be different.

 

GM tops in quality? GM makes a few reliable cars, one of them, the Pontiac Vibe, being a Toyota design, but for the most part, even Joe Isuzu would know better than to say something like that.

 

I think they made it clear that their definition of quality is more than just reliability & build quality, but include other criteria like driving experience, emotional aspects which may include style & design etc., hence they call it TQI ( Total quality Index ).

Undoubtedly, it's a much more subjective survey than CR & jdpower etc. which relies much more on objective quality criteria & data.

I'm happy the LS430 & SC430 still did so well even with their criteria though, as Lexus is still referred by some as boring cars . . .

 

The only DaimlerChrysler vehicle on the list is the PT Cruiser. Shame on MB.

 

Detailed scores can be found at thecarconnection.com:

http://www.thecarconnection.com/Indu...175.A8617.html

Amazing how 3-Series tops the chart by such a wide margin (beats the 2nd-highest SC430 by 14 points) even at the end of its product cycle. The new IS obviously has a tough battle ahead.

 

Or could it be that several of these vehicles are really fun to drive and people really like them? A BMW that sees the repair shop 2 times in a year ends up with a far worse reliability record than a Lexus - but the driver likes their car more. Is that so hard to understand?

As Dan Gorrell from Strategic Vision said "People who buy the Camry aren't passionless, they just aren't passionate about cars."

 

well this survey shows that lurking around internet forums doesnt exactly mean solid proof that a car has alot of quality issues. It seems the cars that were said to be bad really arent