Ruh-Roh, Chrysler: Fiat finishes dead last in new British J.D. Power survey
What automaker has a lower owner satisfaction score in the UK than Chrysler? The one and only company that makes automobiles less tasty to UK consumers is Fiat. Both brands, which are soon to be joined at the arm rest, scored significantly below both the industry average and survey champ Lexus, which enjoyed its ninth year topping the charts. The rest of the top five are Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Skoda, and Toyota.
What owners in the UK have to say about Chrysler and Fiat doesn't necessarily go for the rest of the world; after all, they prefer Rugby and Cricket to our Football and Baseball. It just may be, however, that like those seemingly separate but similar sporting endeavors, the overseas opinion of Chrysler and Fiat as bottom feeders may not be entirely far off from what North American consumers think.
[Source: JD Power | Photo Illustration by Sean Gallup/Getty]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Frank 11:05AM (6/08/2009)
Slow news day? Truth About Cars already covered this. The consensus was that since this is a customer satifaction survey and the dealer experience (sales and service) has so much to do with it - it doesn't amount to anything. Chrysler and other makers that have a small presence in a market will often have lower satisfaction ratings. Finding service and parts (and even information) is hard for owners of cars with very small market penetration. I don't know if FIAT is small in the UK market (I suspect it is). Maybe some of our British friends can tell us.
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Alex 11:13AM (6/08/2009)
How does this constitute a slow news day? Because Truth About Cars already posted it? So what? CNN and Fox News report the exact same news every day.
Personally, i think this is rather important news. It does not immediately dictate that the two will fail upon merging but it does signal that they have a long road ahead to make this move profitable and successful.
Frank 11:18AM (6/08/2009)
Because TTAC posted this last week. At least Fox and CNN (and MSNBC, ABC etc.) report with hours of each other.
Temple 12:35PM (6/08/2009)
Are kidding me? The The Truth About Cars is probably one of worst blogs out there. Its like the whole site is one big troll with a sh*tbin flinging feces.
compy386 1:17PM (6/08/2009)
Wow TTAC reported negative news? Really?
Rocketboy 1:25PM (6/08/2009)
Slow comment day? I've already read that same comment last month.
Yaroukh 11:09AM (6/08/2009)
...and here we go again, no surprise.
so much for "Fiat's issues with quality are far history"
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Shiftright 11:10AM (6/08/2009)
I take this with a grain of salt. If you really look at what the numbers say, it's mostly about the quality of the dealer service, not the cars themselves. Long term tests by Car UK and 4car.co.uk rates them pretty well. The Panda, on which the 500 is based has proved to be very sturdy. Many friends and family I have in Europe bear this out, but regardless, it's an issue. Remember how stellar Saturn's CS numbers were? It wasn't because were especially good, although admittedly they were surprisingly reliable, especially for a GM product. Buyers became fanatics because of the dealer service.
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no. 11:14AM (6/08/2009)
You're right. The Federal Car Quality Czar has everything under control.
Yaroukh 11:17AM (6/08/2009)
Sorry, but Fiat still occupies the lowest ranks in pretty much every quality study (yes, I know this is not exactly "quality" study)... I do love 500 but I am yet to see any stats that would prove Fiat is making progress in their quality.
why not the LS2LS7? 11:18AM (6/08/2009)
My Saturn (from the early days) was a great car. It was very reliable and not just "for a GM car".
Shiftright 11:28AM (6/08/2009)
There was a reliability index in one of the major UK car mags last year by model, and the Panda and Grande Punto were in the top third, and all other models scored better than several VWs, Audis and Mercedes. The only Fiat model that was way down was the Doblo. I go to Europe on vacation and business a lot and often rent Fiats. I often drive as much as 2,000 miles on a 3 week trip and always found them to be pretty well put together and never had any issues with them, and they were always fun to drive and economical. Granted, that's not exactly a long-term test, but for comparison my brother rented a brand new prev gen C Class in LA that just shut down twice at freeway speeds for no apparent reason.
Regardless, Fiat needs to make sure it has its act together when it returns, and the same goes for Alfa. If the service is bad, even small issues quickly become amplified annoyances.
AUTOMANIAC 11:59AM (6/08/2009)
"The European Car of The Year award is Europe's most prestigious car award and includes, among its many criteria, reliability factors." 2008 winner: Fiat 500
2004 winner : fiat panda. but if you choose a car for it's reliability, maybe this isn't your blog.
Jacob 11:22AM (6/08/2009)
well it is Fix it again, Tony
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Beastage 11:23AM (6/08/2009)
*yawn*
Shiftright 11:28AM (6/08/2009)
Wow did you come up with that all by yourself? Truly original.
Jacob 11:45AM (6/08/2009)
hey i'm just saying that's their reputation.
why not the LS2LS7? 11:24AM (6/08/2009)
'The redesigned 2009 UK Vehicle Ownership Satisfaction Study (VOSS) is the successor study to the UK Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) and is based on the evaluations of more than 15,700 online interviews from UK car owners after an average of two years of ownership. The study includes 29 brands and 101 models. Owners provide detailed evaluations of their vehicles and dealers, which cover 67 attributes grouped in four measurements of satisfaction. In order of importance, they are: vehicle appeal (37%), which includes performance, design, comfort and features; vehicle quality and reliability (24%); ownership costs (22%), which includes fuel consumption, insurance and costs of service/repair; and dealer service satisfaction (17%).'
Those who want to write this off as an issue with dealerships might do well to notice that dealer service satisfaction is a relatively minor portion of the study. If purchase experience is in there, it's at 10% or lower.
One saving grace for FIAT is that there are a lot of really low-rent bit players in the UK market that aren't even listed here. FIAT likely beat several or all of them.
Interestingly, Ford didn't do so hot either.
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Kitko 11:26AM (6/08/2009)
Not that I take JD Power results seriously due to their very questionable methods of surveying the very elusive and loose category of customer satisfaction.
Even Fiat could top the charts. Are you satisfied? Has your car exceeded your reliability expectaitons? A FIAT owner who expected their car to break 15 times a year and it only broke 10 times will make one satisfied customer because their car exceeded the expactations.
A Lexus owner who suffered an armerst squeeking would not be satisfied.....
But Fiat coming last is in line with other serious and more mature and dependable reliability tests' results, such as German TUV's numbers after taking and analyzing technical data from 7 million cars very year.
Two bad do not make one right.
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why not the LS2LS7? 12:03PM (6/08/2009)
There's nothing wrong with the owner of a lower-end car being satisfied with their purchase.