Study: Buick most improved appealing brand, Porsche is no.1

J.D. Power and Associates today revealed their 2008 Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL) Study today. The study measures owner satisfaction with the design, content, layout and performance of a new vehicle within the first 90 days. The average overall APEAL score fell by 2 points this year to 770. J.D. Power and Associates says that one-half of the overall decline is due to a huge drop in consumer satisfaction in terms of a car’s fuel-economy.

“Even though more consumers are now achieving the gas mileage they expect compared with previous years, the increased cost of filling their vehicles still leads to a greater level of dissatisfaction with fuel economy than in the past,” said David Sargent, vice president of automotive research at J.D. Power and Associates.

Porsche held the highest rank for the third consecutive year improving by 5 index points followed by Jaguar which improved 3-points. BMW and Mercedes-Benz...
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Porschinator - 6/26/2008 6:14:49 PM

+2 Boost

Porsche is where it should be =)

sector - 6/26/2008 8:25:44 PM

+3 Boost

Right... I'm sure people who buy $100 thousand dollar summer cars lose sleep at night because their German sports car consumes a little too much gas.

MeanVulcan - 6/28/2008 10:16:23 AM

+1 Boost

So... how is it that gathering customer's PERCEPTIONS of how good their vehicles are can be used as factual information. Specially since anyone customer has no experience or basis of comparison of how the other brands/vehicles compare?

This is like saying, if 60% of Americans like American Brand Beer "A" and 65% of Japanese like Japanese Brand Beer "B" then "B" must be better than "A".

The only reason why JD Powers is so successful is because there are SO MANY FREAKING GULLIBLE people who actually take their data as facts.