Jaguar Plant Number One in US Initial Quality Study

Ford Motor Company’s Halewood Jaguar assembly has earned the Gold Plant Quality Award for assembly plant quality in the European region, according to the J D Power and Associates. The 2005 US Initial Quality Study (IQS) found that the Jaguar X-Type, receives a score of 70 problems per 100 vehicles, the best score among European plants assembling vehicles for export to the United States. The Halewood plant, which was first included in the IQS in 2002, has shown a 55 per cent quality improvement to 70 problems per hundred in 2005 from 157 in 2002.

“The improvement at Halewood over the past few years has been spectacular and is due to the efforts of the plant’s entire workforce,” said Dave Sargent, executive director of European operations at J D Power and Associates. “This excellent performance shows once again that Britain can build cars that compete with the best in the world for quality.”

In addition, BMW earns the Silver Plant Quality Award in the European region for its Regensburg, Germany, plant, where the BMW 3 Series Convertible, Coupe, M3, Saloon and Wagon are assembled. BMW’s Munich plant and Porsche’s Stuttgart plant tie for the Bronze Plant Quality Award. BMW’s Munich plant assembles the BMW 3 Series Saloon and Porsche’s Stuttgart plant assembles the Porsche 911.

The study shows that a number of makes and models demonstrate marked improvements from the 2004 study. Chief among them is Hummer, with a dramatic 36 per cent reduction in reported problems. Since its debut in the 2003 IQS, Hummer has reduced reported problems by more than 50 per cent. “In the past, there was a lot of talk about Hummer’s poor quality being related to poor fuel economy,” said Parker. “This year’s results clearly show that the people at Hummer knew this wasn’t the case. They identified many
customer-reported problems and solved them.”

Nissan also performed dramatically better in the 2005 study, with the Nissan Quest as the most-improved model, recording a dramatic 104 problems per hundred improvement.