Imported cars take the lead in quality

Difference is only 4 points

THE QUALITY of locally manufactured new cars has slipped below that of imported cars for the first time since 2010.

The latest vehicle product quality survey conducted by Ipsos South Africa revealed that there were 39 problems per 100 (pp100) locally produced cars compared with 35 pp100 in imported cars. However, the product quality of locally produced light commercial vehicles (LCVs) was higher than imported LCVs at 41 pp100 compared with 48 pp100 for imported LCVs.

Patrick Busschau, the automotive business unit director at Ipsos, said yesterday that there were only slight differences in the product quality of locally produced and imported vehicles.

He said in terms of product quality, the industry average number of pp100 vehicles had remained fairly static around the 30 to 40 mark since 2011, which was a huge improvement on the average 154 pp100 vehicles recorded in 2005.

The best

“In the world of global production where we are now sourcing vehicles from all corners of the world, South Africa can hold its head high and be counted among the best.”

The survey was conducted using telephone interviews with about 30 000 vehicle owners over a 12-month period last year to measure their purchasing and servicing experience.

Busschau said participating vehicle brands in the survey accounted for 83 percent of total vehicle market sales and major brands that did not participate included BMW, Hyundai, Jaguar, Land Rover, Porsche and Mazda.

The primary purpose of the research was for manufacturers to internalise the results and use it to improve the product offering and customer experience, while some manufacturers also used the results for marketing and advertising purposes.

Ipsos splits the problems into four different areas: static functional aspects, dynamic functional aspects, noise levels and appearance.

The results enabled manufacturers to drill down into specific problems, such as noise level issues where there are three separate types of noise level issues – wind noise, squeaks and rattles and road noise.

Busschau said the most common problems listed were squeaks and rattles, but many of the comments from customers now related to design or experience issues as opposed to actual faults, whereas 10 years ago a reasonably common complaint was “I get upset when my vehicle doesn’t start in the morning”.

No music

“Nowadays we are seeing more evidence of customers getting unhappy about things like their iPod not being compatible with their car and they can’t play their music.

“It’s not really a defect and it’s more of a design issue and our measurement and thinking is moving in that direction. We will still be able to diagnose the problems and defects with the vehicle, but we are starting to look a lot more at the design factors,” he said.

Ipsos makes a number of product quality awards in different categories each year.

Toyota and Mercedes-Benz, both with 25 pp100 were the best local plant manufacturing passenger cars, with the silver award going to Volkswagen (39 pp100) and Chevrolet (43 pp100).

The gold award for the best local plant manufacturing LCV went to Toyota (31 pp100), with Ford awarded silver (37 pp100) and bronze to Nissan (48 pp100) and General Motors (51 pp100).

Three platinum awards for the most consistent quality between 2012 and this year went to Toyota for being the best overall LCV brand, best oneton double cab LCV brand and best local plant manufacturing LCV; Mercedes-Benz for its EClass being the best top executive model; and Nissan for its NP200 being the best threequarter ton vehicle.