Owner satisfaction is a complex metric that has a strong bearing on whether the buyer will consider buying another vehicle from the same manufacturer or not. To gauge such a nebulous category in an empirical way, Consumer Reports surveyed hundreds of thousands of customers on a variety of factors. These included overall comfort, driving experience, cabin storage, usability, and ownership costs.
Scoring highly overall requires a vehicle to meet the customer’s expectations, so a luxury SUV may not offer the best handling, or lowest ownership costs, but if it is comfortable, spacious and practical, it will get a high owner satisfaction index. Conversely, a sports car may be expensive to own and be short on comfort and luxury features, but if it delivers a superlative driving experience, then it will score well here.
All the data below was sourced from Consumer Reports as it provides a reliable benchmark for these costs. CR is a trusted source because it conducts unbiased, large-scale annual auto surveys that analyze real-world repair and maintenance records across thousands of vehicle owners.
Which Brands Are The Least Satisfying To Own?
Jeep
Audi
Chase Bierenkoven
‘There is no such thing as a bad car these days,’ is a quote that has been bandied about for years, but according to actual owner feedback, there are several manufacturers that need to up their game. In the latest Consumer Reports owner satisfaction survey, Jeep, Volkswagen, Nissan and Audi were relegated to the bottom of the list out of the 26 brands evaluated.
The survey collates the results from a comprehensive list of factors, including comfort, driving, cabin storage, usability and ownership cost. CR then asks owners whether they would buy the same vehicle again. The results you see here take into account the 2023-2026 model years.
Audi/Nissan
Audi has spent decades refining its luxury vehicles to take on BMW and Mercedes-Benz, but from the viewpoint of owners of the latest models, it still has some way to go before matching them in terms of overall ownership satisfaction. While Audi scored very well in CR’s road tests, sub-par results in new car reliability, and very high maintenance and repair costs placed it very low in the satisfaction survey. Nissan scored the same as Audi overall, but in this case its road test score was very low while overall reliability was slightly better than average.
Volkswagen
Audi’s parent company, Volkswagen performed even worse in this survey. It delivered mediocre results in the road rest evaluations and was more expensive to repair and less reliable than many of its direct rivals. High overall running costs for a value-focused brand are often a deal-breaker, and owners rated their vehicles poorly as their expectations of a budget-friendly motoring experience often failed to materialize.
Jeep
Jeep has a wide range of off-road focused models and has a strong following with an enthusiastic and passionate consumer base. This also means that expectations can be high and sometimes hard to match up to. In recent years Jeep has been struggling to get on top of reliability issues which have often placed its models right at the bottom of the pack in durability surveys, and regular recalls for serious issues haven’t helped either.
When subjected to CR’s comprehensive road test regimen, the Jeep brand as a whole performed poorly. Poor consumption, weak acceleration, and wayward handling left the CR team and many owners wishing they were driving something else.
Dissatisfaction Guaranteed
As with any broad survey, there are exceptions to the general rule, and you may own an Audi, Jeep or VW that has delivered exactly what you expect of it. However, if you are a new car buyer then these are the three brands that are most likely not going to match their manufacturer’s promises. It is always worth delving into the data to see whether the areas they performed poorly in are important to you.
For example, Rivian scored highly in the owner satisfaction survey, meaning that the vast majority of owners would consider buying the same vehicle again. Yet it is also rated as one of the least reliable brands of them all, which shows that owners are willing to deal with these issues as the rest of the ownership experience more than makes up for it. Seeing as almost every Rivian sold is still covered by the factory warranty, the situation may change as owners are forced to pay for repairs themselves in coming years.
With regards to the worst performing brands here, if they still manage to deliver what you expect from them, then your satisfaction level may be far higher than for someone who thought they were buying a peach but ended up with a lemon.
Research Note:
Consumer Reports is widely regarded as one of the most trusted sources in automotive evaluation because it operates as an independent, non-profit organization that accepts no corporate sponsorship or advertising.
Its predicted reliability and owner satisfaction scores are calculated using data gathered from annual surveys filled out by hundreds of thousands of vehicle owners detailing real-world mechanical repairs and electrical faults.
For exact results on the models mentioned please visit consumerreports.org.
About the author
John Tallodi
Senior Editor