An official vehicle initial quality study has been released by Iran’s Standards and Quality Inspection Company.
For eight consecutive years ISQI has carried out a survey on vehicle quality and auto-owners’ satisfaction rate, reported Asre Khodro, a local automotive website.
The eight edition of the study was conducted between March 20, 2015 and March 20, 2016. It has factored in the quality of both local-made and imported cars.
The Initial Quality Study is based on responses from more than 145,000 purchasers of new models in the study period and customers’ opinion of the cars 90 days after purchase.
The information they provided will facilitate manufacturers with the process of problem identification while boosting product quality.
The study was categorized into three problem areas: assembly and vehicle body, defective auto parts and general design of the vehicles.
It examined problems experienced by vehicle owners during the first 90 days of ownership. Initial quality was determined by the number of problems experienced per 100 vehicles (PP100), with a lower score reflecting higher quality.
The vehicles which were studied had experienced 423 problems on average per 100 vehicles (averaging 423PP 100); which means on an average, each car experienced 4.2 problems during the three-month period.
All in all, 30% of the problems observed were related to assembly and vehicle body, 50% to defective auto parts, and 20% were due to poor vehicle design.
According to the auto-owners, most of the vehicle doors needed to be tuned-up. Also, defect in the engines and some of their parts along with fuel inefficiency were other common problems, they pointed out.
Lexus, the luxury vehicle division of Japanese automaker Toyota, lead the industry in initial quality by a narrow margin, averaging 67 PP100 followed by BMW with 76 PP 100.
Toyota and Alfa Romeo jointly ranked third in initial quality posting a score of 89 PP100.
Mercedes Benz (96 PP100), SsangYong (113 PP100) and Mitsubishi (121 PP100) round up the top five nameplates.
Global Trends
In China’s market overall initial quality averaged 105 PP100 in 2015. Korean brands (80 PP100) outperformed other brands for the fourth consecutive year, while initial quality for domestic Chinese brands was 120 PP100 and 98 PP100 for international brands.
In the US auto market Kia ranks highest in initial quality with a score of 83 PP100. This marks the first time in 27 years that a non-premium brand has topped the rankings. It is also the second consecutive year that Kia, which ranked second in 2015, has led all non-premium makes in initial quality.
Also in the US, Porsche (84 PP100) ranks second among nameplates, followed by Hyundai (92 PP100), Toyota (93 PP100) and BMW (94 PP100).
Chrysler and Jeep are the most improved brands, each reducing the number of problems by 28 PP100 from 2015.
