Skoda emerged ahead of brands like Mercedes, BMW, Audi and Land Rover in the latest J.D. Power 2016 Vehicle Dependability Survey. One of the most respected names in the warranty and reliability monitoring business, J.D Power measured problems experienced over the past year after 12 to 36 months of ownership. The survey looked at 177 problem symptoms across eight categories - engine and transmission; vehicle exterior; driving experience; features/controls/displays; aduio/communications/entertainment/navigation; seats/heating/ventiltion/cooling and the vehicle's interior.
Overall dependability was determined by the number of problems experienced per 100 vehicles - PP100.
The number of cars surveyed was 13,000 and period covered was 2013 to 2015. The table below shows the results.
The emergence of Skoda in the lead does not come as any surprise to me. The company has been pushing extremely hard on its quality control for years and now offers some of the best-value cars on the market, given the usual levels of standard equipment. What is surprising, however, is how far down the reliability index names like Mercedes; Audi; BMW and Land Rover are. The explanation is largely to do with the number of technical features in these cars and these are one of the largest sources of quality problems. Many problems relate to built-in Bluetooth; device pairing and connectivity issues.
