Autoblog

Strategic Vision has announced the results of its annual Total Quality Awards and is touting the performance of Ford this year versus perennial powerhouse Toyota. Both brands have three vehicles each that lead their segments, which include the Edge, Mustang Convertible and F-250/350 for Ford and Toyota's Yaris, 4Runner and Sequoia. The Volvo C30 also led the Small Specialty under $25,000 segment and the Mercury Sable the Large Car category, while the Scion xB was tops in the Small Multi-Function segment and the Lexus RX350 tied with the Land Rover LR2 in the Near Luxury SUV segment. Though all of those brands are technically owned by either Ford Motor Company or Toyota North America, none were counted by Strategic Vision in the battle of the Blue Oval versus the Japanese Juggernaut, though the automakers still would've tied if they were (if Land Rover were not counted as owned by Ford). Meanwhile, the Medium Car segment was lead by the Volkswagen Jetta, though the new Chevy Malibu jumped to second place (how are the Jetta and Malibu in the same segment?), and Honda had only one car make the list, with the Odyssey being named the best Minivan. Follow the jump to view the leaders of all 19 segments.

While most surveys like this count objective stats like the number of problems encountered during initial ownership, Strategic Vision introduces additional criteria by which to judge vehicle quality like the buying experience, what it's like to own a particular car, its performance and driving and even exterior and interior styling. There's a lot of subjectivity in those additional criteria, which tends to skew the results as a whole regardless of the 20,655 buyer-strong sample pool that was surveyed on the 2008 vehicles it bought during September, October and November of last year. Also, as we were reminded by this post, keep in mind that most automakers are actually clients of Strategic Vision, Ford and Toyota included, so there's also money passing hands between these companies. The appearance of conflicts of interest notwithstanding, new car buyers love lists and automakers work hard to land on them, so you decide for yourself how much weight to give to Strategic Vision's 2008 Total Quality Awards.

[Source: Strategic Vision]

The Bloomfield Hills, Michigan-based RDA Group has found that Ford is on par with top-level stalwarts Toyota and Honda when it comes to vehicle quality. Ford managed 1,284 "things-gone-wrong" (TGW) per 1,000 vehicles during the first three months of ownership this year, statistically matching the two top Japanese brands, which are tied at 1,250 TGW. Though it certianly won't be the last word in the ongoing debate as to who makes the best cars, it is at least a good sign for Ford. Perhaps what's most impressive is that 36 of 40 Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Volvo and Mazda nameplates improved this year versus 2007. Ford's performance in this study marks an eight-percent improvement over the previous year, at which time they were tied with Toyota, but trailing industry-leader Honda. While Ford is glad to see quality improving, every automaker would surely like to sit alone at the top of the quality rankings, and Ford is no different.

Ford builds some pretty good vehicles these days, but faces a large perceived quality gap, as only 41-percent of consumers consider Ford vehicles according to their own internal data. For that reason, expect Ford to tout these new quality findings as part of their Drive One campaign.

[Source: Ford]