GM Rises, Nissan Plummets in New J.D. Power Quality Study

Voice recognition systems and faulty Bluetooth pairing are as aggravating as ever, J.D. Power and Associates' new Initial Quality Study reported today. Tech-focused Ford remains well below average in the agency's 33-brand ranking, but GM's four brands — Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC — all rated above average.

The influential study, which enters its 27th year for 2013, rates overall problems per 100 vehicles — categorized as objective defects and subjective (but specific) dislikes — in the first 90 days of new-car ownership. Missed commands with voice recognition and Bluetooth pairing led overall problems by a significant margin, J.D. Power's David Sargent told reporters at an Automotive Press Association lunch in Detroit today.

Porsche, GMC, Lexus, Infiniti and Chevrolet ranked as the top five brands in this year's IQS; from the bottom, Scion, Fiat, Mitsubishi, Nissan and Mini had the worst rankings. GMC has never broken ninth place before, Sargent noted. Nissan fell from 13th place last year to 30th this year, hurt by a slew of redesigns to some of its most popular cars.

Ford to Add More Physical Buttons to MyFord Touch

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday (subscription required) that Ford would swap its MyFord Touch capacitive controls for physical knobs and buttons as it redesigns its cars. It's unclear which models will revert to physical controls, and when, but Ford told the newspaper that all of its models would eventually adopt a heavily revised system.

Cars.com's Issues With MyFord Touch

Product development chief Raj Nair told WSJ that Ford's surveys showed customers wanted to change channels or stereo volume through tried-and-true knobs, and Ford will bring some of those back. Already, a scaled-back version of MyFord Touch in the Focus compact and Escape SUV has physical climate controls rather than the capacitive ones found in the Fusion, Taurus, Edge and Explorer.

Ford released a statement today that said it sells a majority of its cars with MyFord Touch, and more Ford customers prefer voice commands and touch-screen functionality than those shopping Ford's competitors. The Ford F-150's MyFord Touch system — surprise, surprise — has the most buttons, and Ford said it has the highest customer satisfaction scores. Expect future MFT cars to follow the F-150 model.

May's Fastest- and Slowest-Selling Cars

From Land Rover's posh Range Rover to the redesigned Toyota RAV4, SUVs took 10 of the top 16 spots on May’s fastest-sellers list. Expectedly, redesigns ranked high on the list. The 2014 Subaru Forester is selling so fast Subaru dealers can't keep up inventory, and the Range Rover, Hyundai Santa Fe and Mercedes-Benz GL-Class — all redesigned — have repeat appearances among the fastest sellers.

The updated Mercedes E-Class demonstrates shoppers also respond well to a refresh as they do to a full redesign. And the new Lincoln MKZ Hybrid continues to sell, adding steam to the redesign's slow start. It worked well for Ford's struggling luxury brand: The MKZ had its best-ever May in the nameplate's more than seven years, Ford said Monday.

Then you have the old-timers. The 2013 Toyota RAV4 had its fifth month among the fastest-selling cars. The 2013 Ford Fusion, in hybrid or regular form, has made its seventh appearance in eight months. So did Audi's Q5 SUV, despite being in its fifth model year.

Cars in May averaged 56 days to sell. That's a little slower than April 2013's 51 days and a few ticks slower than May 2012's 50 days. Here are May's fastest and slowest sellers:

Study: Older People More Likely to Shop for New Cars

Even as baby boomers age, they continue to buy cars. That generation is now 49 to 67, but a new study by the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute finds a large chunk of them are still active car shoppers.

In 2011, one in every 14.6 drivers age 55 to 64 bought a new car, the UMTRI study found. That's the highest density for any age group, and well above the 19.7 new-car sales for all drivers in 2011. By contrast, the often-targeted 35-to-44 age group, which led all new-car shoppers in 2007, fell in 2011 to 15.9 drivers per new-car sale.

Can Bob Lutz and the Chinese Save Fisker?

If Bob Lutz is winding down, you wouldn't know it. The cigar-chomping former GM product chief is responsible, at least in part, for a host of cars you see on the road today — among them the Chevrolet Camaro, the Chevrolet Volt and the outgoing Cadillac CTS. Lutz turned 81 last February, but he's still a contributing writer at Forbes magazine, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. He's a board member at Utah-based Via Motors, which retrofits a few GM models with plug-in gas/electric drivetrains. And together with Michigan entrepreneur Gilbert Villarreal, he launched VL Automotive, a company that plans to retrofit gas-electric Fisker Karma sedans with GM-supplied, supercharged 6.2-liter V-8s.

Problem is, Fisker is sinking faster than "American Idol" ratings. Lutz said earlier this month that a Fisker bankruptcy wouldn't affect VL's immediate plans, but now it appears he's taking action. Reuters reports VL Automotive has teamed with Chinese parts supplier Wanxiang Group, which bought Fisker's bankrupt battery supplier earlier this year, to offer $20 million for Fisker as part of a packaged bankruptcy deal.

Car Promises That Weren't Kept

Ever wonder what happened to events in the auto industry that were supposed to occur but didn't? You might have seen a news story on a site like ours of a promise by an automaker that sounded legitimate with lots of potential, but in the end a decision was made and it never happened. We look back at a few from the past decade.

Lotus' New Lineup
Think back to November 2010, when Lotus unleashed its soon-to-come lineup into the lower halls of the Los Angeles Auto Show. The niche automaker had four near-production sports cars — the Elite, Esprit, Elan and Elise — plus a four-door concept called the Eterne. All five came fresh from the 2010 Paris Motor Show. The reception in America was phenomenal; Lotus even slapped model years as early as 2013 on some of them.

Turns out we were California dreamin'.

Does Reliability Affect Luxury-Car Sales?

Luxury cars have moved past the days of the ignition-challenged Jaguars in AMC's "Mad Men," but many still have faults. The Mercedes-Benz M-Class and Buick LaCrosse rate below average in Consumer Reports' reliability surveys; the Lincoln MKX, BMW X3, BMW 7 Series and Buick Verano rate even worse. Then there's Jaguar, which earned low marks in J.D. Power and Associates' predicted reliability ratings for its entire 2012 crop. Sibling brand Land Rover fared little better.

Does it matter? Not as much as you think.

It seems luxury-car shoppers care for reliability as much as Don Draper cares for self-restraint. Through April, Jaguar and Land Rover sales are up 12.7%. The Verano outsold Buick's Regal and Encore combined. M-Class sales are down, but it's still Mercedes' best-selling SUV. The MKX is Lincoln's best-selling car. Period.

Are luxury cars unreliable on the whole? The jury's still out. Luxury brands took top honors in J.D. Power's latest Initial Quality and Vehicle Dependability studies, but they spanned the gamut in Consumer Reports' reliability surveys. That's why Jake Fisher, the magazine's director of auto testing, sees little correlation between luxury and reliability.

Study: Most Americans Would Exchange Personal Info for Personalized Cars

A new study suggests the majority of Americans would be willing to divulge personal information, including their own fingerprints, if it personalized their car — and nearly two in three would ride in a self-driving car.

San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco Systems polled 1,514 consumers and 405 auto-manufacturing professionals age 18 and older across the U.S. and nine other countries, from underdeveloped India to first-world France. The firm found three-fourths of U.S. shoppers would share driving habits — as some insurance companies already facilitate — in exchange for insurance discounts. That tracks with Cisco's 10-country average. In the land of the autobahn, by contrast, only about half of all Germans are somewhat or very willing to have such devices installed — but more than 90% of all Indians and Brazilians are amenable to them.

What about other personal information? Reveal away, Americans say. Sixty-five percent would be willing to share personal information like height, weight and entertainment preferences to automakers, not just their car, if that returned a more customized driving experience. And around 55% would be somewhat or very comfortable providing biometric information, like fingerprints or DNA samples, if it made for personalized vehicle security. This is the sort of information "that would allow [the] vehicle to identify you as the rightful driver," said Andreas Mai, who directs product management for Cisco's connected-vehicles division. "Interestingly enough, we found that consumers are willing to trade personal data if they can get benefits from that." (If you think it's too Big Brother, consider that many laptops already ask for such information.)

Unlikely Winners Top Strategic Vision's 2013 Total Quality Awards

How does the Chrysler Town & Country, one of Consumer Reports' least reliable cars on the market, earn a quality award? The same way a Volkswagen Tiguan, a car whose current generation garnered middling scores in J.D. Power and Associates' long-term dependability and short-term quality studies, does. San Diego-based Strategic Vision's released its Total Quality Awards on Monday. Some winners — the Toyota FJ Cruiser SUV and Tacoma pickup, the Kia Soul hatchback, the Lexus LS sedan — have high marks in other reliability studies. Others have anything but.

That's because the firm calculates its Total Quality Index, which originated in 1995, by polling new-vehicle owners on problems experienced and satisfaction with numerous other aspects. In essence, it mixes leading reliability studies from Consumer Reports and J.D. Power with scores for product and dealership satisfaction — the sort of metrics J.D. Power gauges in its Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout and Sales Satisfaction Index studies.

"A lot of quality scores out there simply count problems, and they have no way to be able to determine the importance of the various problems out there," Strategic Vision President Alexander Edwards told Cars.com. "We take a look at what are all the positive impacts plus the negative issues."

Reliability issues can sink an individual model, Edwards said, but the quantitative differences between what's considered reliable and unreliable are so narrow today that owners draw their perceptions from minor aspects — a loose door handle, for example.

Subaru Adds Jobs, Cars to Indiana Factory

In three years, the Subaru Impreza will hail from Indiana.

Subaru imports today's Impreza, which competes with the Honda Civic, Ford Focus and other compact cars, from Japan. Its sole U.S. plant in Lafayette, Ind., builds the larger Legacy sedan, the Outback wagon and a few Tribeca SUVs. It also builds the Camry sedan in a partnership with Toyota, which owns 16.5% of Subaru.

Lafayette has two assembly lines. In 2012, Subaru parent Fuji Heavy Industries announced a production increase along one line by 2014 to 200,000 cars a year from the current 170,000. The other line, which assembles the Camry, has an annual capacity of 100,000 units. The Associated Press reports Fuji Heavy wants to double that capacity and add the Impreza, investing $400 million and bringing employment to 4,500 from the current 3,600.