America Dominates Latest Vehicle Reliability Study

Last year, South Korea dominated the JD Power Vehicle Dependability Study (VDS) with its Kia, Hyundai, and Genesis brands. Though it differs in its criteria, this year’s 2022 JD Power Initial Quality Study (IQS) reveals some major shakeups that place three American-made vehicle brands at the top. As a reminder, Ram topped last year’s IQS results with Dodge, Lexus, Mitsubishi, and Nissan rounding out the top five. For 2022, Buick sits at the number one spot with 139 problems per 100 vehicles with parent General Motors also scoring: highest ranked manufacturer, highest ranked individual model (Chevrolet Corvette), and the highest ranked production plant.

“General Motors is encouraged by the stellar results of the JD Power 2022 Initial Quality Study. Achieving high quality results requires multiple data sources and a commitment to keep evolving and improving over time,” said Dan Hermer, GM Vice President North America Quality.

“At Buick, the quality of our materials, world-class manufacturing, and customer-centric design are at the forefront of everything we do. Therefore, we’re very pleased, but not surprised, that Buick finished first in JD Power’s 2022 Initial Quality Study. The Buick Encore GX also performed exceptionally well, ranking first in the highly competitive Small SUV category,” said Duncan Aldred, Global Vice President of Buick-GMC.

Looking at the rest of the list, Dodge retained its number two spot while Chevy jumped seven places into third. Genesis leap frogged Lexus as the number one ranked in the luxury category since JD Power counts Buick as a “mass market” brand. Other brands that ranked above the industry average include Kia, Lexus, GMC, Cadillac, BMW, Ford, Lincoln, Nissan, Mini, Toyota, and Mazda.

On the opposite end of the list, Maserati, Volvo, and Chrysler round out the bottom, though Polestar would sit in last place if it met the study criteria. Likewise, Tesla would slot evenly with Mitsubishi near the bottom of the list. Vehicle owners in the study cited more problems with their plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles overall, which could explain why Polestar and Tesla faired so poorly.

Overall scores were lower this year than in 2021. “Given the many challenges automakers and their dealers had to face in the past year, it’s somewhat surprising that initial quality didn’t fall even more dramatically,” David Amodeo, Director of Global Automotive at JD Power explained. “In general, initial quality has shown steady improvement throughout the history of this study, so the decline this year is disappointing, yet understandable. Automakers continue to launch vehicles that are more and more technologically complex in an era in which there have been many shortages of critical components to support them.”