LexFather

Toyota tops, others rising with buyers: Consumer Reports
http://www.canadiandriver.com/2010/0...er-reports.htm
Yonkers, New York – Toyota remains the number-one vehicle in overall brand perception among car owners, according to the Consumer Reports 2010 Car Brand Perception Survey, but Chevrolet, Ford and Subaru have made dramatic increases of at least 30 points over last year.

The scores don’t reflect the actual quality of the vehicles, but how consumers perceive each brand in seven categories: safety, quality, value, performance, design/style, technology/innovation, and environmentally friendly/green.

Toyota kept its number-one spot, but jumps in overall scores helped Ford slip past Honda into second place, and Chevrolet to fourth place from ninth. Subaru’s 39-point increase, the largest of any brand and almost double its 2009 score, boosted it to ninth place from last year’s 18th position.

The top ten scoring brands were Toyota (196), Ford (141), Honda (135), Chevrolet (124), Volvo (92), Mercedes-Benz (92), BMW (90), Cadillac (87), Subaru (81) and Lexus (80).

The two lowest-scoring brands were Hummer and Saab. Luxury brands saw the greatest decreases in overall scores, with Porsche dropping 13 points; Cadillac 15 points; Infiniti 21 points; and Lincoln dropping 25 points.

Safety, quality and value topped the list of factors that car owners considered the most important when buying a car. The only significant change over last year is that people who listed “environmentally friendly/green” as one of their top three priorities was down eight percentage points.

Women deemed safety to be the most important factor, while men rated quality as the top consideration.

For each category, the leaders were:

Safety – Volvo (73 per cent), followed by Ford and Subaru

Quality – Toyota (30 per cent), followed by Honda and Ford

Value – Honda and Toyota (tied at 26 per cent), followed by Ford and Chevrolet

Performance – BMW (29 per cent), followed by Porsche and Toyota

Environmentally friendly/green – Toyota (51 per cent), followed by Honda and Ford

Design/style – Lexus, Cadillac and Mercedes-Benz (tied at 23 per cent), followed by Chevrolet and BMW (tied at 19 per cent)

Technology/innovation – Toyota (32 per cent), followed by Mercedes-Benz and Lexus

mmarshall

Ford and Chevy customer perception, of course, has been maintained over the years by the huge number of F-150 and Chevy Silverado buyers who have been fiercely loyal. Hollywood will drop cocaine before these buyers give up their trucks.

Subaru, of course, has always had a high loyalty rate....and they have certainly convinced me that, for versatility and bad weather, they rank among the best daily drivers on the market.

mmarshall

Perhaps that is one of the things that draws so many women to the VW Beetle....its generally good safety-rating. I generally don't believe in stereotypes, but there is no question that the Beetle is popular with women........especially the convertible.

IS-SV

Good stuff, realizing what it is and nothing more.

"The scores don’t reflect the actual quality of the vehicles, but how consumers perceive each brand in seven categories: safety, quality, value, performance, design/style, technology/innovation, and environmentally friendly/green."

IS-SV

lol, we've heard so many times that "don't believe in stereotypes", but I cannot think of one single poster that has provided more examples of stereotypes., but we get your point...

Don't ask me to name or list them, because I might, lol.

mmarshall

Oh, yes.....stereotypes definitely exist. I never said otherwise....but that doesn't mean that I agree with them. And that, IMO, doesn't (or should not) make them a major reason for buying or not buying a certain vehicle. I've always felt that an auto-buying decision should not be made up by trying to keep up with the Jones'es or because a certain group buys or doesn't buy the vehicle.

I bought a Subaru, for instance, knowing full well that the brand had a left-wing image and that people of my political inclination are not often drawn to Subarus. I simply found it the BEST car for my purposes...period.

LexFather

Yup and "perception is reality".....

The list of the top and worst brands are in that link. Acura was dead last a couple years ago, now Lincoln and Infiniti are near the bottom.
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/c...eptions-ov.htm

IS-SV

Got it, that's a stereotype that I hadn't been brought up to speed on. That's a doozy, add it to the list.

IS-SV

Agreed, important that the automakers stay in tune to how buyers perceive their products.

mmarshall

That's the problem, Mike. Perception is NOT always reality.....but the minds of the public, often shaped by politics and the writings of misguided reporters, tends to try and make it so.

A typical example is Arianna Huffington (my nickname for her is Huff-and-Puff-ington) . For years, she has led a relentless campaign against so-called "SUV's", though she actually has very little knowledge of what an SUV truly is.....or of the many different types of SUV's, from small to large, conventional to hybrid, car-based to truck-based, unibody to ladder-frame, etc.......

If she ever actually went out and LEARNED something about SUV's, she would be more qualified to speak about them.....and she just might change some of ther opinions. But, in the meantime, she has needlessly turned a lot of people against them with her ramblings.....they believe her.

RXSF

interesting how toyota tops technology, followed by mercedes and then lexus...

Seeing as how most of the cool tech debuts on a lexus first and then gets trickled down to toyotas.

mmarshall

I also shows that I practice what I preach...I don't let them dictate to me, or to my recommendations to others.

And, of course, that is the thread topic......how people perceive and judge brands.

IS-SV

Of course it's not always reality (rarely is anything always), I've never heard of her and I don't think her influence is far-reaching, nor do I care. Mike's point is these perceptions do provide a valuable indicator to the auto-makers.

mmarshall

Toyota probaby ranks highest in technology because it was the first manufacturer to perfect (and expand) the parallel-hybrid system, whereas Honda stuck for a while with the series-hyrids, which were less-sophisticated.

Mercedes and Volvo, of course, are known for safety innovations.

mmarshall

You've never heard of her? She is BIG out there in CA......San Francisco is her home.

Here....this tells her story:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arianna_Huffington