J.D. Power released its annual Vehicle Dependability Study, crowning the most reliable cars in the market, as well as pointing out the worst performers.
The study measures the reliability of 3-year-old cars and trucks, based on responses from 32,952 original owners of 2016 model-year vehicles after three years of ownership. For 2019, it crowned Lexus as the most reliable brand of them all for the eighth consecutive year. Second place went to both Porsche and Toyota.
Fourth and fifth place went to Chevrolet and Buick respectively, rounding up the top 5 performers in the study. Volvo, Land Rover and Fiat were found to be the three least reliable brands.
The annual study’s dependability score is the number of problems experienced per 100 vehicles, with the lower number being the better score. Mass-market brands outperformed luxury brands for the first time in the 30-year-long history of the study, with the former averaging 135 problems per 100 vehicles against 141 problems per 100 vehicles for the luxury brands.
The highest-ranked model overall in J.D. Power’s 2019 study is the Porsche 911 while the most improved brand is Chrysler. Other brands that significantly improved on their scores this year include Mini, Volkswagen, Jeep, Cadillac, Audi and Subaru.
The overall average across the brands was improved by four percent since last year. J.D. Power says that vehicle reliability continues to improve but at a slower pace. The study included Smart but left it unmarked due to the small sample size. Tesla was excluded because of an insufficient sample size also, but that’s because Tesla didn’t allow Power to contact its customers.
