Hyundai grabs number three spot in quality survey

The popular Lexus was pushed out of top spot in the survey.

Although Toyota and its luxury arm, Lexus, continue to dominate the J.D. Power initial quality survey in the United States, the Japanese giant has some unexpectedly tough competition from two brands not generally known as quality benchmarks.

Porsche pushed past Lexus to capture the number one spot in this year's survey, a measure of how consumers rate the quality of their vehicles during the first few months of ownership.

The typical Porsche had 91 problems for every 100 vehicles. Lexus, with 93 problems, came in a close second.

The biggest surprise came from South Korean carmaker Hyundai, which not many years ago was bottom.

This year Hyundai took the number three spot, edging out Toyota, which was fourth among the 37 brands included.

Overall, those carmakers saw their quality improve by 8 per cent compared with last year. But California-based Power made some changes to the survey this year to make the study more detailed and finite.

The survey now separates actual defects from design flaws, which could include a flimsy cupholder. The result of that change proved significant.

Toyota would have been third among all brands based solely on defects, but it was eighth in terms of design flaws.

BMW would have tied with Toyota but it suffered from consumer-perceived design flaws - including its oft-maligned iDrive - as well as ergonomic issues with the 3-Series.

Combining the two categories, BMW fell to the bottom third of the manufacturers with a combined problem count of 142.

The industry average was 124.

Hyundai's stellar performance showed it was able to control defects, said the survey, while also limiting the number of problems its owners had with vehicle design. Even competitors praised the Korean carmaker.

"Do we keep our eye on Hyundai? Of course we do, because they're going becoming a bigger and bigger player," said Toyota US executive Jim Lentz.

Toyota took the top spot in 11 of the 19 product segments, and Lexus grabbed the top spot in every segment in which it competed, including the large premium car winner, the LS430.

Porsche's strong performance showed that paying attention to the results of the US survey can help a manufacturer get quality under control, J.D. Power said. Only one other European brand scored above average. Jaguar slipped into sixth place, with an average 109 defects and Mercedes-Benz had 139. BMW's Mini brand had 150 problems and Volkswagen 171. Land Rover plunged to last place, with 204.

American carmakers had some setbacks in the survey.

Cadillac was the number eight brand - but the top-ranked American nameplate.

GMC, Chrysler, Lincoln, and Chevrolet were the only other domestic brands to top the average.