Once again, the automobile industry matched its record-high ACSI score of 80, set in 1995 and 2000. Cadillac has taken over the top spot from Mercedes Benz, with a score of 88. Mercedes Benz, BMW and Buick all came in with scores of 86. It is the fit between what the product offers and what the customer desires that is the key. Companies with tight homogeneous markets usually do better than companies with more diverse markets.
Sales are up dramatically and there are even waiting lists to buy some models.
Hyundai also has the best warranties in the business and as the quality of its products has improved, warranty claims have decreased and customer satisfaction has increased. While customer satisfaction in the automobile industry has held steady, all other manufacturing durables measured in the second quarter showed overall declines. The return of Maserati to American roads is key to the brand's plans to grow worldwide sales by about fivefold over the next four or five years from about 2,000 cars currently. But the venerable luxury carmaker, now under the ownership of Italy's Fiat SpA, needs to repair the dented image of its trident logo, after a series of models in the 1980s had a reputation for poor reliablity. Maserati plans to introduce a new Spyder two-seat convertible in the first quarter next year and a new GT coupe in the second quarter.