* Awd L * Mark Levinson * Navigation * Heated / Cooled Seats * Rear Sunshades * on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Buick, Lexus top J.D. Power survey, as vehicle service improves overall

Buick and Lexus returned to their customary place atop J.D. Power's scorecard of satisfaction with dealership service departments. In the Customer Service Index Study, out Thursday, Buick scored 860 on a 1,000-point scale for mass-market brands and has topped this ranking in three of the past four years. Lexus topped the list of luxury brands with a score of 874. Fiat and Land Rover were the bottom-dwellers in the two categories. Buick and Lexus also ranked highly in the research company's overall Vehicle Dependability Study rankings out recently. The customer experience at car dealerships has improved steadily, with the overall industry score rising in seven of the past eight years. And one statistic is particularly remarkable: 94 percent of customers say their car was fixed right the first time. The dominant area of difficulty in repairs seems to be infotainment systems. Only 80 percent of respondents said their stereo was fixed right the first time. And in last month's Vehicle Dependability Study, J.D. Power reported that infotainment systems were the most commonly reported vehicle issue, accounting for 22 percent of all problems reported, up 2 percent from the previous year. J.D. Power surveyed 70,000 customers for the Customer Service Index Study. For the Vehicle Dependability Study, it surveyed 35,186 first owners of 2014 model-year vehicles after three years of ownership. Below are charts for both the current study and the complementary overall brand dependability survey. Related video:

Autoblog Minute: UAW and FCA avoid strike, Clarkson teases new show

FCA avoids a worker strike, a former Top Gear host teases us with a picture from Amazon's new car show, and Toyota predicts autonomous cars by 2020. Autoblog senior editor Greg Migliore reports on this edition of Autoblog Minute Weekly Recap. Show full video transcript text [00:00:00] FCA avoids a worker strike, a former Top Gear host teases us with a picture from Amazon's new car show, and Toyota predicts autonomous cars by 2020. I'm senior editor Greg Migliore and this is your Autoblog Minute Weekly Recap. A UAW strike of FCA was avoided thanks to a zero-hour tentative agreement reached this week. Worker concerns that were renegotiated in the new [00:00:30] deal include adjustments to the two-tier wage scale, health care costs, and production outsourcing. Now check-in with Autoblog as we update our reports on this evolving story. Shooting began on Amazon Prime's new automotive show starring the former Top Gear crew. That's Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May. Now Clarkson threw out a tweet from day one of filming on location at Algarve Motor Park in Portugal. The picture features the show's [00:01:00] three stars and crew posing with the holy trinity of hyper cars. That's a McLaren P1, a Ferrari LaFerrari, and a Porsche 918 Spyder. This Prime show is being called Gear Knobs though the name is unofficial. Now if a tweet is any indication of what we can expect, who cares what it's called this is gonna be awesome. (Eds Note: Clarkson tweeted Friday that the show will not be called Gear Knobs.) Toyota predicts drivers could be obsolete on highways as early as 2020, with technology dubbed the Toyota Highway Teammate or THT. Toyota is using a modified [00:01:30] Lexus GS to show what this is capable of. THT is already able to create a driverless freeway car that's capable of changing lanes, making passes and taking curves. Plus, it can keep safe distances from other vehicles. Toyota is currently testing this on Tokyo's Shuto Expressway. Those are the highlights from the week that was. Be sure to check out my full recap this Saturday. And I'll have some added insight on the BMW M4 GTS. For Autoblog, I'm Greg Migliore. [00:02:00] Show Logo Autoblog Minute is a short-form video news series reporting on all things automotive. Each segment offers a quick and clear picture of what's happening in the automotive industry from the perspective of Autoblog's expert editorial staff, auto executives, and industry professionals.

Did Lexus make a BMW? Or did BMW make a Lexus? This and other 2017 surprises

It's that time of year again. The calendar is about to reach its end, Star Trek Cats 2018 is about to take its place, and I'm reflecting about all the cars that graced my driveway this year or summoned me to exotic places. You know, like Stuttgart or Phoenix. In 2017, I drove at least 57, and as I perused the list of them, I started to notice a common refrain: "This car surprised me." Most were pleasant surprises, but there were a few head scratchers and facepalms for good measure. In both cases, it was generally the result of car companies seemingly trying to break out of an existing mold. Nowhere was that more apparent than the pair of Lexuses slathered in Infrared paint: The LS 500 that left me this week and the LC 500 that was my favorite car of 2017. Though Lexus has been trying to shake its crusty, gold-packaged reputation for some time now, its efforts always seemed like an old man choosing Hollister to redo his wardrobe after realizing it hasn't been updated since 1987. I fell in love with the LC, genuinely floored by its near-perfect take on the GT. It's characterful in sound, appearance and tactility. It was at home in the city, in the mountain and on the open road. It was both comfortable and thrilling, and after driving the mechanically related LS 500, I can report that the LC's talents aren't an outlier. The LS 500's turbo V6 may make different noises than the LC's naturally aspirated V8, but it nevertheless invigorates the cabin when the car is placed in Sport+ mode. The steering is truly communicative, body motions are kept in miraculous check, and I absolutely forgot I was in an enormous luxury limo ... and a Lexus one at that. It was everything that the BMW 530e was not. I drove that on the exact same roads and was utterly bored the entire time. Generally doughy, lifeless steering, more distant than Planet 9. And no, the plug-in hybrid powertrain had nothing to do with that. At least it shouldn't. The Porsche Panamera S e-Hybrid I also drove this year proves that, as do the Hyundai Ioniqs, which are surprisingly adept and fun little cars regardless of what powers their wheels (Hyundai + hybrid = fun really blew me away). I would drive that Lexus LS F Sport over the BMW 5 Series any day of the week, which seems like a shocking thing to say in relation to either car. While Lexus is seemingly breaking out of its old crusty mold, BMW seems to be climbing into one.