Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Lexus is the top performer in a new survey of vehicle dependability.

J.D. Power and Associates says most other brands in the survey also showed improvement, and that the auto industry has reached historically high levels of dependability.

The consulting firm polled 31,000 owners of 2009 model-year vehicles and rated brands by the number of problems owners have
experienced in the last 12 months.

Problems can range from stalling engines and transmission issues to peeling paint and glitch electronics. The top complaint in this year's survey was excessive wind noise.

Lexus, Porsche, Cadillac, Toyota and Scion had the fewest reported problems. The worst performers were Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram and Jaguar.

The industry average was 132 problems per 100 vehicles, the best rate since the survey began in 1990.