Hyundai and Kia score big against Japanese brands in J.D. Power quality explore

Industry analyst J.D. Power has published its yearly update on initial vehicle quality, and the results are encouraging for proponents of South Korean cars and trucks. In 2015, buyers of fresh Hyundai and Kia vehicles ranked the two companies’ products among the most reliable in the very first ninety days of ownership.

Just how significant are the results? Does this mean that, after years of low reliability and quality rankings, Hyundai and Kia are now the industry standard? Let us break it down for you:

To determine rankings in “initial quality,” J.D. Power surveys buyers and lessees of fresh models, and asks respondents to indicate problems they’ve had with their vehicles in specific areas. IQS is an significant metric that automakers then use to tout their respective reliability in advertisements, but it’s only one of J.D. Power’s measurements.

The current Elantra is one of our top picks for car buyers who want explosions of features in a petite car.

The results from the probe are usually skewed by successful or problematic new-model introductions, specific factories’ output, and fluctuate year by year.

This year is hardly the very first time that South Korean automakers Hyundai and Kia have earned upper-echelon catches sight of in J.D. Power’s survey. Since 2013, the duo have scored above the industry average, outpacing many European competitors as well as some Japanese and Americans. The most surprising leap to the top came from Infiniti, which reported twenty five percent fewer problems per vehicle in two thousand fifteen than the prior year.

The thirty three brands that comprise this year’s spread, ranked from Porsche to Fiat, represent almost every automaker in the United States, but not all of them.

Missing from the list was electrical car wunderkind, Tesla, as were supercar manufacturers McLaren, Aston Martin, Ferrari, and Maserati, among others.

Quality surveys can be strange brutes. The Tesla Model S, seen here, has scored large numbers in consumer satisfaction studies. Yet the Tesla brand was absent from J.D. Power’s survey.

The importance of an automaker ranking at the top of the ever-important IQS results hasn’t switched over time, but the industry has.

One year when Lexus took high honors in the probe, in 1998, the industry average was one hundred seventy six problems per one hundred vehicles. Fast-forward almost two decades, and that figure has dropped to 112, this year’s average. Even this year’s IQS loser, Fiat, would have come out ahead of the industry average in many years past—although it scored a whopping two hundred six just a year ago.

Problematic with IQS results is the inability to scrutinize individual vehicle plants’ quality. For example, while Mercedes-Benz builds the GLA crossover at a German plant, it produces the related CLA at a factory in Hungary.

Is the end of a Japanese reign over the top of J.D. Power’s survey a crimson flag for buyers? Unlikely.

Should Lexus be worried? Not truly. The longtime darling of quality surveys still ranks high, and fresh model intros or switches of seemingly minor controls can have an over-sized influence on the IQS explore.

Potential customers should take the results to heart when checking out a fresh vehicle, but not hold to them. We imagine that Lexus’ confusing Enform infotainment system was a sore spot for fresh owners. What the results truly display, specific to the Japanese brands, is how much closer in quality Toyota has come to Lexus over time.

Historically, some brands’ year-over-year spectacle fluctuates dramatically. Look no further than Nissan, which was reported at one hundred forty two in 2013—up from ninety nine problems the year before—and its one hundred twenty one rank this year. A few fresh models, or something as plain as a switch of infotainment system, can have a major influence in this annual report.

Kia’s totally fresh Sedona minivan has cast the brand’s people-mover into the role of a quasi-crossover-van. Acute looks, tons of utility, and a strong warranty make this a minivan you won’t be embarassed to drive.

After all, does anyone recall the one thousand nine hundred ninety eight result? J.D. Power ranked Land Rover’s Range Rover, an SUV known for copious amounts of power and luxury, but not exactly what we’d call class-leading quality ratings, as a top pick in initial quality.

Seventeen years later, we wonder how all those Class of ’98 Range Rovers – and any owners who based their purchase solely on an IQS survey – are faring?

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