Automotive News and Reviews for the Petrolhead
Reuters Motoring Commentator
In this week's issue:
- Toyota Wins Top Honours in Quality Survey
- Car Briefs
Toyota is the highest-ranking automaker in an annual vehicle quality survey, with its luxury Lexus brand winning top honours for the 10th consecutive year. The closely watched J.D. Power and Associates survey of long-term vehicle dependability is based on responses from 48,000 owners of three-year-old vehicles when questioned about issues such as drivability and problems including noise and vibration.
The survey is key to the auto industry because 52 percent of new car buyers say long-term quality is one of the most important factors in their choice of brands, according to J.D. Power. Toyota's Lexus unit topped the brand rankings with 162 problems per 100 vehicles. But Japan's largest automaker also led manufacturers overall, with 207 problems per 100 vehicles, followed closely by Honda with 210 problems.
"The two (Toyota and Honda) are head and shoulders above everybody else and the factor there is that they were the first in the industry to recognise that building vehicles that last is really the most important thing," said Joe Ivers, J.D. Power's executive director of quality and customer satisfaction research.
"Building vehicles that last tends to produce a whole lot of benefits that aren't immediately obvious. One of course is that it satisfies more customers, it gets you more customers," Ivers told Reuters.
For the second straight year, GM was alone among Detroit's traditional Big Three automakers in ranking above the industry average of 269 problems per 100 vehicles. Its Buick brand placed No. 2 behind Lexus and its Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC, Saab and Saturn nameplates all scored above the industry average as well.
Ivers said Ford and the Chrysler unit of DaimlerChrysler had also made impressive gains, however. Ford's Lincoln Town Car and F-150 and Ranger pickups topped their class and the Chrysler Concorde was the highest-ranked full-size car.
"The domestics have been touting for a couple of years now the commitments they've been making to long-term quality, and we just had not seen, until now, consistent evidence of that. Now we're really seeing that," Ivers said.
Europeans Struggling
Volkswagen and its Audi unit both improved over last year's results. But VW was still near the bottom of the survey and Ivers said virtually all European automakers were struggling with quality problems. Land Rover, which Ivers described as a perennial loser, finished last among individual nameplates. "They're highly desirable vehicles but they tend to have a tough time getting customers to buy more than one," he said.
Since their 1998 linkup with Chrysler, executives at Daimler have boasted about how Mercedes-Benz would show its poor American cousin how to build more dependable and desirable vehicles.
But Chrysler and its Dodge, Jeep and now-defunct Plymouth brands all out-ranked Mercedes, which had 327 problems per 100 vehicles, up from 318 problems in last year's survey. In addition to new and used-car sales, and getting and keeping customers, Ivers noted that long-term quality is important to automakers because of their warranty costs.
Peugeot's new 1007 will be fitted with electric sliding doors unlike anything else on the market. The doors require only a small lateral clearance to open, roughly equivalent to that of the door mirrors, so the car can be parked in very narrow spaces.
The 1007 will be equipped with a choice of three engines, a 1.4 litre petrol engine (75 bhp), a 1.6 litre petrol engine (110 bhp) and a 1.4 litre HDi diesel engine (70 bhp). Petrol engine versions will have the "2-Tronic" controlled manual gearbox offering two gear change modes: one automated, the other sequential, changing either via the gear lever or the steering wheel control paddles.
The Peugeot 1007 will be available in right-hand drive versions from May 2005.
Citroen is introducing a new top-of-the-range version of its C3 Pluriel supermini convertible.
The C3 Pluriel 1.4i Exclusive special edition features bolstered grey leather seats with orange leather on the upper backrests, interior leather trim, and aluminium-effect bumper inserts, door handles, side mouldings and door sill trim. Air conditioning is standard, along with electric folding door mirrors. The Pluriel 1.4i Exclusive is priced at £11,995, including £1,500 cashback.
Buyers of 1.6i 16V SensoDrive and 1.4HDi models can opt for an 'Elegance' pack, which includes the new leather upholstery, exterior aluminium-effect styling treatment and folding door mirrors, for £900.
BMW is investing £40m in its British factory in Swindon, which supplies the body pressings for the Mini. The investment in the former Rover Group plant confirms its long-term future and is part of BMW's plans to build on the success of the Mini. As yet, there is no news on a major expansion of the main Oxford factory, but that may appear in the coming months. In the meantime, BMW is working on the Mark 3 Mini, due in 2007. It will use BMW designed engines for the first time and the range will include an estate to be called Traveller and possibly a small MPV as well.
Toyota Wins Top Honours in Survey
Porsche, with 240 problems, General Motors with 262, and BMW with 264, rounded out the top five.
Car Briefs
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