History of Automobile Manufacturer Quality
Standings from
1975 to 2010
by James Bleeker
Content Summary
This section of Auto on Info provides charts and tables of auto-manufacturer
quality ranks and rank averages from 1975 to 2010.
The ranks are for years 1975, 1980, 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000,
2005, and 2010 and are computed using the statistics
found in the Used-Car-to-Avoid tables and the
reliability charts of the April issues of Consumer Reports,
likely the most respected and followed source of
automobile-quality information in North America.
Each page has a "Summary and Analysis" section.
This section currently has the following pages:
Auto-Quality Ranks of U.S.'s Big 6 Manufacturers: Go
Auto-Quality Ranks of the Big 3 and 5 Japan-Based Manufacturers: Go
Auto-Quality Ranks of the 5 Europe-Based Manufacturers: Go
Auto-Quality Ranks of the 5 Europe-Based and 5 Japan-Based Manufacturers: Go
Auto-Quality Rank Averages of the Car Manufacturers with Significant Sales in the U.S.: Go
Highlights
Some interesting highlights of automobile manufacturer quality are:
1. By both infrequency of trouble-prone
models and overall reliability, only Toyota Motor Corporation has had
consistently high quality rank.
2. Honda Motor Company has had consistently high quality
rank by overall reliability.
3. General Motors Corporation and the
Chrysler Group have a downward trend in quality standing by both
quality measures. Each seems to vie with the other for poorer
quality vehicles.
4. Both of Ford Motor Company's quality standings
fell quite considerably in the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s,
but have recovered greatly from their depths in the mid-1990s.
5. By both quality measures, in 2010 Ford
ranks much higher than GM and Chrysler, but lower than 4 of the
5 Japan-based auto makers.
For a Google Knol by site manager that summarizes the changes in auto-brand and auto-manufacturer ranking from 1990 to 2010
by the quality measures of this section, click
Go.
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