Be true to your brand, or not
Among the many ways you can measure the health of an automaker – quality, owner satisfaction, resale value – one of the interesting ones is loyalty, measured by whether someone trades in his or her existing car for another of the same brand, or not. It’s interesting because it gives an idea whether a company is building cars people like, and whether owners trust that brand to deliver again.
Edmunds has published the results of its latest survey revealing how loyal people are to each brand. We’ve assembled the most and least loyal brands here. There are a number of predictable results, and a couple of surprises. Click on for more.
4. Ram: 54%
Ram‘s fourth-place ranking is interesting for a number of reasons. The finish means Ram is the American automaker with the most loyal buyers, and the most loyal truck brand.
Ram does have a bit of advantage in the truck department though, since F-150 and Silverado buyers will be wrapped up in Ford and Chevy numbers. Still, it greatly exceeds GMC, which only has 35 percent of its buyers coming back for more. Ram is also has the most loyal buyers of any Fiat-Chrysler brand, and by a lot. We’ll get to that later.
Research the 2018 Ram 1500
And the rest
Among the mainstream brands (i.e. not luxury), Hyundai and Kia were just barely behind the top five. Ford, Mazda, and Jeep were right in the middle, and right behind the bottom five were Mini, Buick, and GMC.
Edmunds also compared 2017 numbers with 2007, and it’s interesting to see which companies have gained and which have lost. Subaru, Mazda, Mini, Jeep, and Kia all made big increases. Mini and Mazda had the biggest increases. Mini increased by more than double, going from 9 percent to 24. Mazda also saw a big gain going from 23 percent to 44 percent.
On the flip side, Dodge and Chrysler plummeted. Dodge dropped from 37 percent to 19, and Chrysler went from 29 percent to 16.
