U.S. CARS IN QUALITY'S FAST LANE GM, FORD SEE IMPROVEMENT EFFORTS PAY OFF IN J.D. POWERS DEPENDABILITY STUDY.

Byline: Brent Hopkins Staff Writer

WESTLAKE VILLAGE - American automakers are building more-dependable cars, toppling some of Europe's most-vaunted names and making inroads on long-standing leaders from Japan, according to a study released Tuesday by J.D. Power and Associates.

Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc. continued its dominance of the annual Vehicle Dependability Study, powered by its premium Lexus nameplate, but General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. made strong strides in improving their quality as measured by the three-year performance of 2000 models.

GM, in particular, performed above the industry average with five of its domestic brands.

``The Japanese have really raised the bar in terms of quality,'' said Brian Walters, J.D. Power's senior director of product research.

``We found it very interesting that for the top three models in each class, Toyota still has the most, but GM is right behind them, which is quite a feat. GM is putting greater time and effort into designing vehicles better from the get-go.''

Toyota Motor Sales spokeswoman Nancy Hubbell noted that Lexus had won the nameplate ranking for eight straight years under J.D. Power's old dependability study, which rated cars at five years into their life span and hadn't slackened its standards. Under current quality-control practices, any employee can stop the entire production line if they think something's gone awry.

``We think that any company that's dedicated to quality and makes better cars is a good thing,'' Hubbell said.

``We know we're a target for the domestic brands, but we're not standing still. If they keep using us as a benchmark, that's fine with us and better for the consumer.''

Though Toyota and Ford both praise their own quality-control practices, GM has taken the unusual step of acknowledging that its past work has not always been its best. In its ``Road to Redemption'' ad campaign, launched in early June, GM stresses improvements in quality in its cars.

``Our goal is to be the industry leader in all areas of quality, and this study shows we're making progress,'' said Pat Morrissey, GM's director of communications for manufacturing and quality.

``Customers are starting to recognize what we've done. We have an initiative called 'Quality is a Value' that looks at the plants, the suppliers, everything that goes into the vehicle.''

While Ford Motor Co. ranked slightly below the industry average of 273 problems per 100 vehicles, with 287, its F-Series ranked highest in the key full-size-pickup category.

Louise Goeser, Ford's vice president of quality, said a rigorous test course with railroad tracks, potholes and steep grades allows the automaker to work out kinks before the vehicles roll into showrooms.

``Do we want to be best? Sure,'' Goeser said. ``We want to provide great vehicles to our customers that last a long time. But our goal is to just keep getting better, and you can see that we're at best-ever performance levels.''

Mercedes-Benz has watched its star fall in recent years. While the German automaker led the first dependability study in 1990, it now ranks below average with 318 problems per 100 cars - more than Chrysler, which it now owns.

Donna Boland, Mercedes' manager of corporate communications, said quality problems have been fixed with current models. ``Obviously, we're disappointed by the drop in the ranking,'' Boland said.

``Clearly, this is input from customers, and ours have very high expectations. We want to meet those expectations, so if there's something in the mix we haven't addressed, we want to make improvements.''

Brent Hopkins, [phone]

brent.hopkins(at)dailynews.com

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SOURCE: J.D. Power and Associates

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