What appears to be behind the increase in the problems drivers are experiencing with their vehicles in this year's study?

The biggest area was the powertrain. Overall we saw problems increase by about 7 PP100, of which powertrain accounted for 5.5 PP100. Within that we saw an increase in things like automatic transmission shift being rough, the engine feeling like it was stumbling or hesitating, check engine lights coming on, the engine lacking power, or not starting at all.

When we looked into it further, we found it was mainly in 4-cylinder engines, and we think a lot of this is coming from automakers trying to understandably squeeze every last mpg out of the powertrain to get better fuel economy. That's all well and good, but it seems some of them went a bit too far down that road. Consumers described it as seeming like the engine was being starved of fuel, which in a sense was the case. The use of turbocharging didn't help, either. Engines with turbochargers tend to have more problems than engines without them.

What is the impact on brand loyalty when it comes to vehicle dependability? What role does service play in the loyalty/dependability relationship, in terms of dealers being able to successfully address the problems?

There is a clear correlation between experiencing problems and the propensity to repurchase the same brand. We go back and look at previously reliability studies to see how the customer evaluated the vehicle, and then we track that actual VIN and see what happened when they traded it in. The evidence is overwhelming that poor dependability degrades loyalty.

In terms of dealer reaction to the problem, we feel if a dealer is able to fix the problem to the customer's satisfaction quickly, then they are more likely to stay with that brand than if the customer is left hanging even if it's through no fault of their own.

One dynamic in the industry is there has been a significant shift away from true defects toward what we consider design problems. It's not that the individual vehicle has experienced a problem, but every vehicle the manufacturer builds has the exact same problem. Customers may complain about it and the dealer has no chance to fix it, because that's just how the car is designed. This is creating a bigger problem for manufacturers, because they don't have the dealers as a backstop to solve this. The relationship between those problems and loyalty is direct, and there's almost no possibility to solve the problem.

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