J.D. Power’s annual Dependability Study was released this week and rather than running down the list of the best and worst, I’ll echo Autoblog’s encouragement to discard information from lists like this because the way they gather data is deeply flawed.
First, they survey owners who have had their cars for three years – not more and not less. And you know what most cars still have after three years? A warranty. And you know why they still have a warranty? Because most manufacturers design their cars well enough that things shouldn’t go wrong within the first three years. Some trust their cars more and will give five year warranties or even longer, but for the most part, things shouldn’t be going wrong within the first three years.
Second, the dependability survey treats all flaws equally. Cars and brands are rated on a “problems per hundred” vehicle scale, so fewer is obviously better. However, if the parking sensors sometimes don’t see the wall in your parking garage, that’s recorded with the same severity as the transmission going out on your idiot neighbor’s Dodge Charger.
Finally, J.D. Power Awards are pay-to-play, which means that, in order to publicize that they won an award, car companies must pay J.D. Power for the right to say they did. Paying for awards may not inherently lead to dishonesty when awards are given, but it certainly isn’t a super system that discourages playing favorites.
So what can you do instead? Car companies generally have reputations for a reason. Lexus is at the top of the list and they belong there because they make fantastic, dependable cars. But then you know that not because of a dependability study, but because of the collective experiences of past and current owners whose stories have dispersed through the grapevine to inform public opinion. Acura and Subaru also make great, dependable cars, but they languish in the bottom half of this year’s dependability study, which is misleading, because you can almost certainly depend on them to get you from A to B, but you may not always rely on your USB port to read your Android phone or something small, and not trivial, but also not critical.
But don’t just trust your preconceived notions about automotive brands, because they’ll lead you astray with companies like Kia and Hyundai, who are in the top seven of J.D. Power’s list and have definitely made huge strides in reliability in the past ten years. Read reviews from real owners on Cars.com or Edmunds or long-term reviews from Motor Trend or Car & Driver or any number of other reputable publications. Read about common problems with cars on forums and social media. Sure, you’ll be getting anecdotes, but you’ll be sourcing them from a larger crowd than either Consumer Reports or J.D. Power. But remember that people are 80% more likely to complain about a product on the internet than they are to praise one, so don’t let individual anecdotes color your opinion of a car if you truly want it. But if you start seeing many stories of similar problems, then that’s probably cause for concern, and you’re probably researching a Chrysler. Which, yes, was at the bottom of the J.D. Power survey, so you should probably research something else.
Authored by
Devlin Riggs