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Buick, Lexus top J.D. Power survey, as vehicle service improves overall

Buick and Lexus returned to their customary place atop J.D. Power's scorecard of satisfaction with dealership service departments. In the Customer Service Index Study, out Thursday, Buick scored 860 on a 1,000-point scale for mass-market brands and has topped this ranking in three of the past four years. Lexus topped the list of luxury brands with a score of 874. Fiat and Land Rover were the bottom-dwellers in the two categories. Buick and Lexus also ranked highly in the research company's overall Vehicle Dependability Study rankings out recently. The customer experience at car dealerships has improved steadily, with the overall industry score rising in seven of the past eight years. And one statistic is particularly remarkable: 94 percent of customers say their car was fixed right the first time. The dominant area of difficulty in repairs seems to be infotainment systems. Only 80 percent of respondents said their stereo was fixed right the first time. And in last month's Vehicle Dependability Study, J.D. Power reported that infotainment systems were the most commonly reported vehicle issue, accounting for 22 percent of all problems reported, up 2 percent from the previous year. J.D. Power surveyed 70,000 customers for the Customer Service Index Study. For the Vehicle Dependability Study, it surveyed 35,186 first owners of 2014 model-year vehicles after three years of ownership. Below are charts for both the current study and the complementary overall brand dependability survey. Related video:

NC dealer falsely announces return of Regal Grand National, Regal GNX

Like many new car dealers, Liberty Buick GMC gets so excited about its brands' new wares that it puts out press releases announcing when new models are on the way. That's not typically national news, but the Charlotte, NC store has created a bit of internet hubbub by announcing that it will be "one of the first dealers in the country to offer the Buick Regal GNX," and it's even started to add customers names to a waitlist. Only one problem: Despite seemingly annual rumors and calls for such a model, Buick hasn't announced any Grand National models at all – let alone a GNX – and no such models are actually in the cards. The Liberty Buick press release talks in a nostalgic, venerative tone of the original 1982-1987 GN franchise, and goes on to say: "These returning relics will be based on the highly-acclaimed Alpha vehicle architecture currently used in the Cadillac ATS, 2014 Cadillac CTS, and soon to be in the sixth-generation Chevy Camaro. Alpha is the internal name of a General Motors vehicle architecture engineered to underpin compact and mid-size rear-wheel-drive vehicles." In the release, Liberty Buick claimed the GN/GNX models would arrive in late 2015, citing a coupe bodystyle, including a rather fantastical-looking GNX rendering from Bestride.com. Unsurprisingly, none of this is true. Autoblog reached out to Buick for comment about the release, and brand communications manager Nick Richards confirmed that the company had discussed the matter with Liberty Buick representatives. Richards went on to say that the release was wholly incorrect, proclaiming "an agency [for the dealer] picked up a lot of stuff off the internet" and ran with it, including an old Car and Driver story from 2013. The dealership subsequently issued a retraction, with Scott McCorkle, owner of Liberty Buick GMC saying: "We love the idea of the Buick Regal GNX coming back to our showroom but for now, it's only a concept. Bottom-line, the article was incorrect.

BMW tops Consumer Reports 2023 Brand Report Card

Feels like we wrote about Consumer Reports' 2022 Brand Report Car and 10 Top Picks a few weeks ago, but it was last April. So the mag is back with a ranked roster of 32 brands and 10 vehicles in four categories for your debating pleasure. Starting with the brands, last year's top three were Subaru, Mazda and BMW. This year, the Munich crew climbed two spots to win the prize thanks to "Superb road test scores and solid results in CR’s reliability and owner satisfaction surveys." Subaru narrowly fell to second, maintaining its four-year run in the top three. Mini, eighth last year, jumped five spots to get the last step on the podium. The rest of the top 10 were Lexus (up one spot from last year), Honda (down one spot from last year), Toyota (up three), Genesis (up 12), Mazda (down six), Audi (down three) and Kia (up eight). The magazine and testing outfit says its Brand Report Card "[reveals] which automakers are producing the most well-performing, safe, and reliable vehicles based on CRÂ’s independent testing and member surveys," and that "Brands that rise to the top tend to have the most consistent performance across their model lineups." Last year's top 10 had six automakers from Japan, three from Germany (giving Mini credit for England), none from the U.S. or South Korea, and five luxury brands. This year's list counts five makes from Japan, two from Germany because Porsche fell out of the top ten, two from South Korea, still none from the U.S., and four luxury brands. Buick again ranked as the best domestic, dropping to 12th after being 11th last year. The big mover was Lincoln, its 10-place jump up to 16th attributed to better reliability from the Corsair and Nautilus. Tesla's improved overall reliability saw it climb six spots to 17th. Dodge climbed one spot to 15th. Jeep got out of the penalty box in last to come second-to-last. Land Rover fell three places into the penalty spot.  CR's top 10 vehicle models The 10 Top Picks list is practically a new list. Only two holdovers made it to 2023, those being the Subaru Forester and Kia Telluride.