A flood of technology frustrates car buyers in vehicle reliability study

DETROIT – General Motors and Toyota posted solid marks in the dependability of 3-year-old vehicles, but consumer frustrations with wireless connections, navigation and voice-recognition software persist across the automotive industry, according to a J.D. Power and Associates study released Wednesday.

Lexus, Porsche, Buick and Toyota captured the top four spots in the annual vehicle dependability study, which measures owners' complaints per hundred vehicles and was released one day after a similar survey by Consumer Reports magazine. These vehicles all had fewer than 114 problems per hundred, with Lexus (95) and Porsche (97) setting the pace.

The study also recognized standout vehicles in nine car and 10 light-truck segments. From that perspective, GM had eight segment-leading models, while Toyota and its Lexus luxury brand had six.

But an overriding theme of the study, again, was that consumer frustration with the flood of technology into their vehicles is not easing. The industry average of problems per 100 vehicles rose to 152 from 147 last year, and many of the issues were related to controls, entertainment choices and voice-recognition glitches in touch screens or hands-free smartphone use.

"The increase in technology-related problems has two sources," said Renee Stephens, J.D. Power vice president of U.S. automotive. "Usability problems that customers reported during their first 90 days of ownership are still bothering them three years later, in ever-higher numbers."

Stephens said frequent complaints centered on Bluetooth, the wireless connection between smartphones and vehicles, and voice-recognition software that is meant to translate voice commands into text or directions for navigation.

In the last year, however, GM, Hyundai and others have begun to offer to make their connectivity technology compatible with either Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. These systems effectively replicate the non-video apps from one's phone on the vehicle's center-mounted screen.

"The technologies people were most satisfied with collision-avoidance features such as lane-departure alerts or blind-spot monitoring," Stephens said.

J.D. Power researchers gathered responses from 33,560 drivers of 2013 model-year vehicles interviewed between October and December 2015.

Domestic brands fared better in this study than in the Consumer Reports rankings released Tuesday. The J.D. Power data showed five domestic brands in the top 10 — Buick (3rd), GMC (5th), Chevrolet (6th), Ram (9th) and Lincoln (10th). Cadillac, which ranked fourth last year, slipped to 15th, at 145 problems per 100, slightly better than the industry average.

Only Buick (7th) ranked in the top 10 brands in the Consumer Reports assessment.

Stephens said a record number of vehicle recalls (more than 51 million in 2015) has shaken consumer confidence in their vehicles' reliability. But Mark Rosekind, administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, has taken a much more aggressive stance on defining safety related problems that require recalls.