Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 7, 1993 TAG: 9307070118
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: DETROIT LENGTH: Medium
General Motors Corp.'s Saturn was No. 3 in the J.D. Power and Associates 1993 Customer Satisfaction Index.
Lexus had 175 points, Nissan's Infiniti 170 points and Saturn 156. Germany's Mercedes-Benz and Audi completed the top five with scores of 149 and 147 respectively.
The survey was based on responses from more than 31,000 car and light-truck owners. It measured customer satisfaction with dealerships and the repair and reliability records of cars and light trucks after one year of ownership.
Lexus also topped Infiniti in last year's satisfaction survey, but by 179 points to Infiniti's 167.
The 1993 index showed the gap between domestic automakers as a group and Japanese automakers was dropping - from 25 points in the 1986 study to an average of nine this year.
Saturn's rank in the '93 survey was the same as last year, but it lost four index points in customer handling.
In all, 16 car lines finished above the industry average of 135 and 16 finished below. Six Japanese, five domestic and five European lines were above average. Nine American, two European, four Japanese and one Korean car line were below average.
Among light trucks, Toyota finished first for the third year in a row with 165 points, 14 points better than last year. GM's Oldsmobile, which sells only limited numbers of sport utility trucks and minivans, finished second with 146 points; and Chrysler Corp.'s Dodge division finished third with 142 points.
Eight truck lines finished above the 138 average and nine finished below.
by CNB