FCA Quality

Fiat Chrysler Tops Annual ‘Total Quality’ Survey

Quote :

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles earned the top spot overall in an annual survey of new car quality.

Strategic Vision, a San Diego-based research firm, ranked FCA No. 1 for the first time since the company began measuring customer satisfaction in 1995. Last year, Kia earned top honors.

FCA had six cars that topped their respective segments, including the Fiat 500 and 500e; Dodge Charger, Challenger and Durango; and, the Jeep Wrangler Unlimited.

While FCA took the top spot this year, General Motors and Volkswagen followed closely behind, tying for second place, one point behind FCA on a 1,000-point scale.

According to Strategic Vision, 46,000 consumer responses were used for the study, which rated consumer satisfaction along with problems in each vehicle. The Mini Cooper Roadster earned the highest score among new cars. Land Rover was tops among luxury automakers, Ram was first among non-luxury automakers.

BMW had six segment winners including the i3, 3-Series Wagon, X4 and X5; Mini Cooper Roadster and Countryman.

According to the Detroit News, the Total Quality Index study comes out less than a week before the annual J.D. Power Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout survey that last year ranked all FCA brands below industry average.

TTAC

Strategic Vision has a history of odd survey results (bias). They consider factors other than product issues to somehow make poor performing products shine.

Not sure if any of those "quality surveys" (aka "lies, damn lies and statistics". )are worth the paper they're printed on. In a year and a half and 21,000 miles on my little Fiat I've had a few issues (since corrected under warranty) but even at that, it has proven less problematic than DW's supposedly "bulletproof" Honda CR-V.  No interior trim pieces have fallen off the Fiat ... can't say the same about the Honda. Build quality is every bit as good and in some cases better than the Honda, a much more expensive vehicle. Most worrisome is the cold start issue- in cold temps there is often a grinding metal to metal noise on startup (scared the crap out of me the first time I heard it) and Honda has no fix for it. It's the VTC (variable timing controller); apparently the oil bleeds out and causes the noise. Honda says no harm is done but I'm not so sure. We're not the only ones either- there's more than a few owners ticked off about this issue.

Most all vehicles are much better qualitywise than they were just a decade ago. I'd have no issues qualitywise buying any one of the big 2 1/2 though I admit to being partial to the current Rams.