- Hyundai is at the top of 33 automotive brands, according to a new owner loyalty study from J.D. Power and Associates. Bankrupt Saab is at the bottom.
- Hyundai's stellar loyalty numbers are driven by the Elantra and Sonata, says the study.
- Following Hyundai in the rankings are Ford and Honda, in a tie for 2nd place.
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, California — Hyundai is at the top of 33 automotive brands, according to a new owner loyalty study from J.D. Power and Associates. Bankrupt Saab is at the bottom.
Hyundai's stellar loyalty numbers are driven by the Elantra and Sonata, says the study. Hyundai improved its "retention rate" by 4 percentage points from 2010 to 64 percent in 2012. The study was not conducted in 2011. For 2012, the industry brand loyalty average is 49 percent.
Ford and Honda tied for 2nd place with a customer retention rate of 60 percent. Jeep posted the biggest improvement, jumping 17 percentage points to 51 percent in 2012. Rounding out the bottom of the list were Saab at 7 percent, Suzuki at 20 percent and Dodge at 21 percent.
The 2012 Customer Retention Study is based on responses from 117,001 new-vehicle buyers and lessees.
Inside Line says: Hyundai continues to ride high with the J.D. Power and Associates win on top of its 2012 North American Car of the Year prize for the Elantra.
Add A Comment »
macsaan says:
09:15 AM, 04/20/2012
Congratz
idk y hookerlyn whines in every hyundai articles
so pathetic
proudgcowner says:
06:38 PM, 01/18/2012
Congratulations to Hyundai!!!
I am one happy Genesis Coupe owner and I absolutely love the Sonata, Elantra, Accent, Veloster, Tuscon, etc.
tbone85 says:
02:06 PM, 01/18/2012
So NOW we examine Power's methodology? As long as the same folks are questioning their methodology when their preferred marque is being praised by Powers, then we have something to talk about.
In terms of raw numbers, most national presidential election polls query 3000-4000 people with an expected accuracy of +/- 3% points. Considering that there are 190 million eligible and 115 million likely voters, the sample size is MUCH smaller than what Power's is using. Since 1956 the final poll numbers have been within the margin of error in every Presidential election except twice. In both instances the races involved a 3rd party candidate who drew more than 5% of the actual vote (Anderson and Perot).
If there's a data problem with Powers, I'd be more suspicious of how they controlled for a representative population than the sample size. I think that's a major problem with CR, but perhaps Powers has issues there as well. Again, we rarely question the data of Powers or CR unless we disagree with the conclusion. :-)
hooklyn says:
01:25 PM, 01/18/2012
Oh, and they only sampled 1% of new car purchases...hahaha
Not nearly enough to generate ANY trend.
hooklyn says:
01:24 PM, 01/18/2012
This happens for 3 reasons;
** Hyundai products are getting exponentially better with each generation
- This means that if you bought a new Hyundai 3-5 years ago and go back to find something new, the new car will be vastly better then what you currently had, regardless of its level of competency among its peers.
** Hyundai owners have 'interesting' expectations when purchasing a new car. I think with Hyundais reputation, the expectations from consumers isn't very high. When the new product exceeds that very low expectation, they are satisfied and return to see something even better next time. They haven't been building decent cars long enough for this to change.
** Hyundai offers some of the highest customer loyalty incentives in the business.
This is just another meaningless study. If Hyundai appealed to you 3/4/5 years ago, of course it is going to appeal to you now...
gsxrbean says:
12:03 PM, 01/18/2012
@m6user and j2j
Ok, I'll spell it out real slow, because both of you obviously are. JD Power sampled 117,001 new car owners, how many new cars were sold? Find out, then divide the little number into the big number, this is the sample size. Comes out to 1%
mdale007 says:
09:56 AM, 01/18/2012
As a owner of two Hyundai Sonata's I can tell you that from an owners perspective purchasing these vehicles has zero downside. In my owning experience my Pontiac G8, Saturn Aura were no better, and my Honda Insight was quite a bit worse.
twistedrider says:
09:06 AM, 01/18/2012
I'm not surprised. The quality, style, and everything coming standard at a reasonable price. And the longest warranty in the business to back up the quality. No wonder their customers are satisfied. And from what I hear, they actually listen to customers and adjust their products accordingly. This method is definitely working for Hyundai/Kia when it comes to attaining loyalty.
ed341 says:
04:59 AM, 01/18/2012
@nefariousnigel
Your agrument doesn't make sense. If the study is refering to repeat customers within the brand it doesn't matter which models they choose. The fact that the Elantra and Sonata dominate the statistics is irrelevent. Every manufacturer has volume sellers. The F150 and Fusion probably top Ford's sales, and the 3 and 5 series top BMW's. All the study is showing is Hyundai has the most repeat customers.
nefariousnigel says:
08:28 PM, 01/17/2012
@cz_75:
Really? Honda is tied for second place with Ford...so much for their "marginal better than the domestics shit". By the way, did I mention Ford was tied for second place? I hear they are marginally better than Honda...
Furthermore, JD Powers says (which IL paraphrases):
"The report says the company's customer loyalty in the US is primarily driven by the Elantra and Sonata."
So the diversity of the models sampled seems skewed toward only the high volume vehicles (which makes sense since the info is from voluntary customer survey feedback). However, that means Genesis, Genesis couple, Equus, and Azera customer loyalty may suck but get averaged out by Elantras and Sonatas. We just don't know.
The bottom line is that you really can't claim BRAND customer loyalty by having only two vehicles dominating the BRAND's retention statistics (unless the brand only has two vehicles in their lineup). If JD powers has such a sampling issue with Hyundai, Honda's is most likely equally biased toward the Accord and Civic.
In other words, some of these results may be more a measure of customer loyalty for particular MODELS rather than particular MANUFACTURERS.
Again...we just don't know...