Toyota’s Lexus Line Tops Dependability List

Toyota Motor Corp.’s Lexus luxury car ranked first in long-term dependability for the third year in a row in a J.D. Power & Associates survey released Tuesday.

General Motors Corp.’s Cadillac finished second, a strong improvement from its fourth-place ranking a year ago, the firm said.

Volkswagen’s Audi luxury car line placed third in the Agoura Hills-based marketing information firm’s 1997 Vehicle Dependability Study. The rankings are based on the number of problems encountered during the last year by 21,000 original owners of 1992 model-year vehicles.

“Stagnant personal incomes, greater exposure to leases” and the growth of used-vehicle certification programs and used-vehicle superstores “are greatly increasing the importance of long-term vehicle quality,” J.D. Power III, founder and chairman, said in a statement.

Lexus had 217 problems per 100 vehicles; Cadillac had 240 and Audi had 242. Nissan Motor Co.’s Infiniti line ranked fourth with 269; Honda Motor Co.’s Acura had 278.

For the first time in the five-year history of the survey, J.D. Power combined the rankings of cars and trucks, reflecting the growing popularity of light trucks such as sport-utility vehicles and pickup trucks. Truck sales swelled to 44.8% of the total U.S. market in 1996 from 12.5% in 1960.

And for the first time, J.D. Power also did not publicly release rankings for individual models. Many of the models in the survey have been redesigned since 1992. Results of a make’s overall performance is more significant, said Chance Parker, J.D. Power director of product research.

“If it’s been redesigned, we really don’t know if the redesigned model is going to be any good,” Parker said.

Parker warned of a growing “quality gap” between cars and light trucks--especially minivans and sport utilities.

In J.D. Power’s initial quality survey of 1992 car buyers after 90 days of ownership, minivans and sport utilities had about 25% more reported problems than cars. After four or five years, owners reported 35% more problems with minivans and 44% more problems with their SUVs.

“They have not aged as well as cars,” Parker said.

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Auto Dependability

J.D. Power & Associates’ list of the most dependable ‘92* auto makes:

*--*

‘97 rank Make ’96 rank 1 Lexus 1 2 Cadillac 4 3 Audi ** 4 Infiniti 3 5 Lincoln ** 6 Acura 9 7 Mercedes-Benz 5 8 Honda 12 9 Buick 6 10 Toyota 7

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*After four to five years of ownership.

**Ranked below the industry average.

Source: Associated Press