Cadillac leads pack in survey on car-buying experience
By David Kiley
USA Today
| • | Who is satisfied?
Results of the J.D. Power and Associates sales satisfaction study: Top-ranking brands Cadillac Lowest-ranking brands Suzuki |
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Brands owned by Cadillac's parent, General Motors, took six of the top 10 spots in the ranking, based on a survey of more than 40,000 buyers of 2002 and 2003 vehicles.
The survey asks customers about the quality of the facility, salesperson, financing, pricing and delivery.
"Our dealers have been great even when they didn't have all the products they needed," says Cadillac general manager Mark LaNeve. "Now that we are coming on with a full range of products, we are kicking on all cylinders."
GM's Saturn brand had topped the rankings the past three years but dropped to fifth place, although it had nearly the same score as last year.
In fact, the industry average was up from a year ago.
That may be in part because low interest rates and longer-term loans mean low monthly payments that make people happier. The survey shows the average loan term is 58 months, three months longer than last year, and the average loan rate is 4.8 percent versus 5.5 percent last year. One in 10 customers in the survey got a 0 percent loan. The average monthly payment was $427.
The Asian non-luxury brands continued to rank below average, as they have since the survey began 16 years ago. Chris Denove of J.D. Power says that's in part because their dealerships tend to be in metropolitan areas where there is heavy price competition, rapid turnover of sales staff and more aggressive selling tactics.
U.S. carmakers have more suburban and rural stores, where dealers tend to have longer relationships with their customers.
Asian brands also don't offer as many and as deep sales incentives as U.S. automakers do — and deals make people happy, Denove says.
"Overall, Honda and Nissan have been making progress, but Toyota has been losing ground and should be concerned," he says.
"We like our product-quality scores better than this one," says Toyota spokeswoman Nancy Hubbell. "We lose points because we offer incentives less generous than competitors' and because many of our dealers' facilities haven't kept up with our growth."
Toyota sales have risen 27 percent over five years, but the automaker has added only about five dealers.
A year ago, Honda placed 11 executives around the country to improve customer handling at dealerships. This year, its score climbed, and the automaker was just a point shy of the industry average.
Denove says consumers should remember that the rankings are averages.
"Some Suzuki dealers, which ranked lowest overall, will be better than some Cadillac dealers."
Auto manufacturers collect data that show them which of their dealers are scoring the best and worst with customers, but neither they, nor J.D. Power, make it available to consumers.
