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Lexus tops JD Power Vehicle Dependability Study again, Buick bests Toyota

It shouldn't surprise anyone, but Lexus has once again taken the top spot in JD Power's Vehicle Dependability Study. That'd be the Japanese luxury brand's fourth straight year at the top of table. The big news, though, is the rise of Buick. General Motor's near-premium brand beat out Toyota to take second place, with 110 problems per 100 vehicles compared to Toyota's 111 problems. Lexus owners only reported 89 problems per 100 vehicles. Besides Buick's three-position jump, Scion enjoyed a major improvement, jumping 13 positions from 2014. Ram and Mitsubishi made big gains, as well, moving up 11 and 10 positions, respectively. In terms of individual segments, GM and Toyota both excelled, taking home seven segment awards each. The study wasn't good news for all involved, though. A number of popular automakers finished below the industry average of 147 problems per 100 vehicles, including Subaru, (157PP100), Volkswagen (165PP100), Ford/Hyundai (188PP100 each) and Mini (193PP100). The biggest losers (by a tremendous margin, we might add) were Land Rover and Fiat, recording 258 and 273 problems per 100 vehicles. The next closest brand was Jeep, with 197PP100. While the Vehicle Dependability Study uses the same measurement system as the Initial Quality Survey, the two metrics analyze very different things. The VDS looks at problems experienced by original owners of model year 2012 vehicles over the past 12 months, while the oft-quoted IQS focuses on problems in the first 90 days of new-vehicle ownership. Like the IQS, though, the VDS has a rather broad definition of what a problem is. Because of that, a low score from JD Power is no guarantee of extreme unreliability, so much as just poor design. In this most recent study, the two most reported problems focused on Bluetooth connectivity and the voice-command systems. The former leaves plenty of room for user error due to poor design (particularly true of the Bluetooth systems on the low-scoring Fords, Volkswagens and Subarus), while the second is something JD Power has already confirmed as being universally terrible. That makes means that while these studies are important, they shouldn't be taken as gospel when it comes to automotive reliability. News Source: JD PowerImage Credit: Copyright 2015 Jeremy Korzeniewski / AOL Buick Fiat Ford GM Hyundai Jeep Land Rover Lexus MINI Mitsubishi RAM Scion Subaru Toyota Volkswagen Auto Repair Ownership study

General Motors shaking up its marketing... again

One of the things that dogs the full comeback of General Motors is the instability of its marketing. That part of the automaker got yet another big shakeup today when GM confirmed what I have been tweeting for a few days - strong rumors that the Chevrolet and Cadillac ad accounts are walking to new ad agencies.
Cadillac, GM's luxury brand, is going into review from Fallon Worldwide, Minneapolis and the indications are that Campbell-Ewald, Chevy's old ad shop, will end up with most or all of it. C-E just announced that it was moving from its long-time home in Warren, MI to a new downtown Detroit office next to Ford Field, just blocks from GM.
The other shoe to drop shortly will be the shift of GM's most important brand, Chevy, from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners of San Francisco to McCann-Erickson of Troy, MI. McCann used to be the agency for Buick and GMC, as well as GM's corporate advertising, and has retained some pieces of business over the last few years. Sources have even told us that it was McCann that did a lot of the creative work on Chevy's new ad platform, Find New Roads. (Not to be confused with a former McCann tagline for Saab, "Find Your Own Road.")

The new Opel Insignia might be a great Buick, but it's a sad Holden Commodore

Since the first shots of the uncovered Opel Insignia hit our inboxes, we've been filled with excitement for the new sedan. It looks great, it should come to America with little to no visual changes as the Buick Regal, and we might even get a wagon version. Unfortunately, there's a lead lining to this silver cloud, and it comes to us from Down Under. You see, the Opel Insignia is also undergoing a re-badging job in Australia to become the new Holden Commodore. It's replacing the beloved rear-drive Commodore (with an optional V8 and ultra-high performance HSV variants) with a front-drive-based platform offering four- or six-cylinder engines. This is depressing news considering the Zeta-platform underpinning the Commodore VF spawned the Pontiac G8, Chevrolet SS, and fifth-generation Camaro. Knowing this was going to happen doesn't help much either. What makes it all worse is that the new Commodore doesn't have a shred of unique styling in the bodywork. That's not an exaggeration. A new grille with a Holden lion badge instead of an Opel lightning bolt badge is the only change. See for yourself in the Insignia gallery below. Not only did GM erase a unique Australian model, it didn't even allow the brand to give the car a distinct shape. It's sort of like when Ford planned to replace the Mustang with the Mazda-derived Probe. The Probe wasn't that bad for the time, but it was no Mustang. At least in that case the Mustang survived. View 12 Photos Before we get ourselves too down, we should mention that there are reasons to be hopeful for the future. For one thing, the new all-wheel-drive Commodore/Insignias will come with a version of the GKN-developed rear differential found in the Focus RS and Range Rover Evoque, which is pretty neat on its own. And Opel/Vauxhall have always had wild performance versions of the Insignia and its Vectra predecessor. The last one made 325-horsepower and had all-wheel-drive. A new one would likely produce much more, since one of the available V6s makes 308 horsepower. Then imagine all of that extra hypothetical horsepower hooked up to the all-wheel-drive system that introduced us to "drift mode." Not only that, but rear-drive Holdens may not be completely dead yet. A Belgian man announced his intention to buy an old Holden factory along with the tooling and rights for the car once it was discontinued. His plan is to continue producing the old model after Holden is done with it.