Consumer Reports Likes Hyundai

Never thought the day would come...


Consumer Reports Likes Hyundai


Chevy also on the “it” list, while Ford, Benz and VW make the other list.

by Jim Burt
3/16/2003


Consumers love it. Some automakers love it. Others hate it.

The Consumer Reports annual car issue is out. And there are some surprises to those who only shop for vehicles every four or five years, and don’t follow the progress and failures of the car companies week to week.

The auto issue, considered a bible for car shoppers, has reviews, buying tips, reliability scores, safety ratings and industry trends compiled by the magazine’s auto test staff. Reliability ratings are based on surveys of 460,000 owners of vehicles up to five years old. They were asked about problems in fourteen areas.

Toyota continues as the top brand for reliability in the ranking, based on 2002 models, to very little surprise. The shock in this year’s findings came from South Korean brand Hyundai, much maligned in the past for quality problems, which now ranks number two along with perennial leader Honda, in the magazine’s newest reliability ratings. The brand’s ranking is based on complaints about 2002 models, which found 11 problems per 100 vehicles for Hyundai. Last year, the magazine's survey found Hyundai had 24 problems per 100 vehicles, ranking it 12th out of 20 brands.

What’s it all about, Hyundai?

Honda executives I talked to privately groused. One, not for attribution, said, “that's just crazy.” In a way, it is. One of the things that undoubtedly sways how consumers respond to surveys, whether they are CR’s or J.D. Power’s, is expectation. People who expect Hyundais to fall apart in the hot sun like wax fruit are bound to let a squeak here and a rattle there go by the boards. A Honda owner who expects never to have to change the oil in a Civic, will be a much harder grader on his car. “My God, the graining of the plastic on the dashboard is uneven compared with that on the map pocket!”

Hyundai had such quality problems in the past that it began offering ten-year warranties to help reassure buyers. Chuck Halper, vice president of service for Hyundai Motor America, says the automaker's says the automaker’s warranty costs have fallen more than 50 percent on some models since 1998.

Also amusing to compare were comments by Don Dees, vice president for quality for Chrysler Group, and those of Mercedes-Benz spokesman Fred Heiler. (Psssst. They work for the same company.) Dees said Consumer Reports results generally track right along with Chrysler’s own quality data. “Consumer Reports is a very good metric for us to look at as a company,” he said.

Mercedes spokesman Fred Heiler, on the other hand, defending the declining quality scores of Mercedes — not a single Mercedes is recommended by CR — on both CR and Power, noted that the questions asked of owners are vague and don’t make a “distinction between a squeak or a rattle or an engine or transmission falling out on the road.” Mr. Heiler believes Mercedes’ poor reliability results often are linked to added technology that the German-U.S. automaker has included in the vehicle that owners often don’t know how to use, so they assume it is flawed. Mercedes had the third worst reliability scores. Mercedes quality slipping? Must be the customer’s fault? That’s a good strategy. Learn that one from Audi?

Germans falling

The Germans are increasingly taking it on the chin in quality rankings. There were no Audis on CR's recommended list. And only the BMW 5-Series made it to recommended status. The X5’s dozen recalls may have something to do with it. The Porsche Boxster is recommended for reliability and scores well for depreciation and satisfaction.

Only the Volkswagen Passat scored the CR recommended list among its handsome clankers. Dealership woes and continued nettlesome and annoying problems are killing Volkswagen and Audi’s quality rankings. A current worldwide recall of ignition coils has left thousands of owners on the side of the road or in rent-a-wrecks, while VW manhandles its single-source supplier to a supply of replacements. A VW Golf owner recently complained to me that the window regulators on her car have been malfunctioning for more than a year, and the dealer hasn’t been able to achieve a total fix. The dealer claimed “this never happens.” In fact, VW has had window regulator issues since the 1970s. It’s stubborn allegiance to some suppliers come hell or high water, in part driven by German politics and labor issues, is costing the company customers and repeat business. CR noted that Golf and Jetta’s reliability “has fallen off.” This late in the product cycle? No wonder VW management says they are not concerned about a hydrogen strategy. They have declining quality in cars in their fifth year of manufacture when all the bugs ought to be out.

One wonders how German and other European cars would score if they all went to Bose or Japanese stereo systems. A major flaw in the Volvo S80, for example, notes CR is the sound system. “With unintuitive controls that force you to take your eyes off the road for too long.” That is hardly in keeping with Volvo’s commitment to safety. Again, politics, but Ford is on the case.

The good, bad, and the flawless

Highlights and lowlights elsewhere in the issue: the Honda Accord was the best four-cylinder family sedan, the Volkswagen Passat the best six-cylinder. The Chevrolet Avalanche dethroned Toyota Tundra as best pickup. Toyota and Lexus had 20 vehicles recommended by Consumer Reports out of 25 models rated. Honda, including the Acura brand, earned recommended ratings for 10 out of 14 models evaluated.

GM placed 13 models on the magazine’s recommended list out of 48 evaluated, its best showing to date. GM earned two “best picks,” the magazine’s top honor, for its Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck and the Pontiac Vibe (which shared the honor with the vehicle’s twin, the Toyota Matrix). They were the Detroit company’s first top picks. Two years ago, GM received 11 recommendations, but last year that number dwindled to four.

Only five Ford vehicles made the list, and that includes two Volvos, out of 32 models evaluated. CR said the number of Ford vehicles recommended has fallen steadily since 1999. Not a single Ford blue-oval vehicle was recommended. And the Focus and Explorer garnered the magazine’s lowest reliability scores. That hurts, especially since archrival Chevrolet has six recommended vehicles, and Hyundai has three.

While Hyundai’s scores are improving, they haven’t yet gotten the religion at sister company Kia. No Kias are recommended.

Cadillac had the lowest reliability among luxury marques. The Chrysler Concorde and 300M are both recommended, and have scored high on Power’s quality ratings as well. The cars may have looked dated six months after they debuted, but they hold together.