Some of you might have seen the articles last week that Porsche became the top-rated brand for quality among all cars sold in the U.S. J.D. power hasb een surveying new car buyers for umpty years and for the past several it has been Lexus at #1. However, this year J. D. Powers says they changed the definition of quality, to include not only assembly quality, but design quality. Previously if a car had a stupid design element (say ***** or buttons that were not intuitive to use, etc., it could still be rated high quality IF is was assembled well.
No longer. Now, J. D. Powers surveys complaints about "stupid design" too. Porsche, which had always been near the top but never at the top, shot up there.
I've noticed this too. My Carrera is just flawless- everything where it should be and obvious how to operate it, etc.

 

As far as i know, the JD Power surveys cover a whole range of catergories including dependability (number of problems per 100 vehicles), quality..

Well that's what i got from this article..

http://www.motorauthority.com/news/i...y-study-again/


it states Lexus is still at the top.

 

No . . . Look at the date of my post, long before the article you cite, and the rating releas it talks about, came out. The article you cite is strictly aimed at a rcent survey that looked only at dependability -- that includes several things as you mention, but addresses dependability (reliability) of operation of old and new, where Lexus does win.

The articles I was citing some time back reported on the "big" score J. D. Power gives annually: total quality, which in past years, J. D. Powers had defined mostly as based on number of assembly flaws or failures per new car, so Lexus dominated that rating in most years. But this year, in response to customer surveys, J. D Power permanently changed its overall definition of quality, to include both assembly mistakes or new-car failures, and "quality of design" too -- Now, quality means not only "its put together so it never breaks" but "its designed so it makes sense and is easy to use." It turned out that as cars overall got more and more well built and dependable, a majority of dis-satisfaction with stemmed not from something actually breaking or not working, but from being stupid or hard to use - for example BMW took a hug hit because of its single-**** electronic control-everything system, and Lexus and others got demerits in surveys from owners who say the bottons on radio, AC and other controls are too small, the systems too complicated, etc. Porsche moved way way up, because as any owner knows, the cars really are intelligently laid out -- intuitive. So it still wins on overall quality, even if, in some sense, they are not quite a sdependable as a Lexus.

 

The data you mention is reliability for the first 5 years of service. This is a big deal! The year before they were #2 and two years before that #4.

My personal experience with my 1999 car that I bought new makes me beleive these are well built cars.

lee