I Have Heard a Lot of Talk About Jeep Lately and Its Renewed Commitment to Quality and Lower Prices are Starting to Pay Off Especially for the Jeep Gladiator

The J. D. Power Initial Quality Study is highly respected. J.D. Power surveys new-vehicle buyers about their first 90 days of ownership, measuring the number of problems the driver experiences per 100 vehicles to assess brand performance. The Jeep Gladiator just beat out vehicles like the Toyota Tacoma, Chevrolet Colorado and Ford Ranger for the top spot. The Gladiator outperforms the segment average in seven of 10 key areas in the Midsize Pickup category and ranked first for Midsize Pickup. This is the second time in three years that Gladiator was top in its segment. Stellantis says its renewed commitment to quality is working!

“We’re building momentum and, more importantly, building trust,” said Yuri Rodrigues, senior vice president, quality, Stellantis North America. “These results show that we’re listening to our customers and putting them at the center of every decision we make. We are focused on setting the highest ambitions in quality, and the time is now to execute."

Stellantis Brands Showed Improvement

While the Gladiator ranked first in its class, Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge also improved their performance. The Jeep Wrangler placed second in the Compact SUV category.  The Chrysler Pacifica finish second in the minivan segment. Overall, the Jeep brand improves 13 points on strength of Gladiator and Wrangler performance.

The Dodge brand improved the most of any automotive brand. Dodge climbed 24 spots, which showed that it really needed to improve. Dodge ranked seventh overall.

J.D. Power Initial Quality Study

The J.D. Power Initial Quality Study asks new owners about ten different areas, including driving experience, infotainment and interior. Typically, the biggest complaints center around infotainment being difficult to use or glitchy. Squeaks, rattles and ill-fitting trim are also often big complaint items. 

According to J.D. Power,

“The infotainment category improves 1.9 PP100 yet remains the most problematic vehicle category in the study (42.6 PP100). While half of the top problems industry-wide remain infotainment issues, 11 infotainment problems show improvement from a year ago. However, owners are having more touchscreen-related problems due to the inclusion of non-audio-related features like climate controls, garage door openers and even glove box releases.”

“While customers do find the larger touchscreens visually appealing, their functionality within the vehicle is an increasing source of frustration,” said Frank Hanley, senior director of auto benchmarking at J.D. Power. “Customers are having to tap and swipe through multiple screens to access key vehicle functions like climate settings and built-in garage door openers. Owners find these things to be overly complicated and too distracting to use while driving. By retaining dedicated physical controls for some of these interactions, automakers can alleviate pain points and simplify the overall customer experience.”

Plug-in Hybrids Have the Most Problems in the Survey

I found these findings to be the most interesting. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) have most problems. For the first time, PHEVs, on average, have more problems than their battery electric vehicle (BEV) counterparts. PHEVs have 237 problems per 100 vehicles. Gasoline and hybrid vehicles have fewer problems than PHEVs and BEVs. BEVs performed better this year after Tesla owners reported far fewer problems this year. 

Jeep Photo

Mary Conway is a professional automotive journalist and has decades of experience specializing in automotive news analysis. She covered the Detroit Three for more than twenty years for the ABC affiliate, in Detroit. Her affection for the Motor City comes naturally. Her father ran a gas station while Mary was growing up, in Wisconsin.

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