Hyundai Brands Top J.D. Power Quality Ratings Again

Hyundai Motor Co. and its Genesis and Kia brands swept the top three spots in J.D. Power’s Initial Quality Study for the second consecutive year.

Results rank brands according to defects and design-related problems reported by owners within 90 days of purchase. Scores are expressed as the number of issues per 100 cars, with lower figures indicating higher quality. The rankings were announced earlier today at an Automotive Press Assn. lunch in Detroit.

Hyundai’s 3-year-old luxury Genesis brand topped the 2019 ratings with a score of 63 problems per 100 cars. Genesis was followed by mass-market brands Kia (70 pp100) and Hyundai (71). Rounding out the top five are Ford (83) and Lincoln (84).

The industry average, unchanged from last year, is 93 problems per 100 vehicles. In 2010, the average was 109, and the best-scoring brand was Porsche at 83.

Brands with the worst ratings this year are Land Rover (130), Jaguar (123), Mitsubishi (121), Alfa Romeo (118) and Volvo (114).

This year, 13 brands improved and 18 earned worse scores. Power notes that new models usually garner poor scores than carryover models, so a brand’s ranking usually suffers when it rolls out an all-new or significantly reengineered mass-market model.

Notably, every European brand ranked below average in this year’s ratings. Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and BMW were best in that group with scores of 94, 96 and 102, respectively.