Owners Love Their New American Cars, but It May Not Last

Americans seem to be increasingly happy with the cars they're buying, reflecting the surprising fact that Detroit is getting much better at building vehicles that actually live up to the promises they make in ads and on the showroom floor. Not only is domestic quality up, but also what's known as "packaging" -- getting the right mix of exterior styling, under-the-hood performance and interior comfort into the cars.

American cars have traditionally emphasized styling and shortchanged the other categories. But cars are a holistic experience and weakness anywhere is going to diminish the ownership experience.

First impressions
The 2011 Auto Pacific Ideal Vehicle Awards ask new car buyers what they'd change -- visibility, driver's seat comfort, acceleration -- on their purchases after their first 90 days of ownership. The winners are models whose owners say they like them as-is. American cars took top honors in 11 categories (from "mainstream/popular brand" to "sporty car"). European brands took away seven categories and Asians six.

Dan Hall, an Auto Pacific vice president, told me:

What this means is that American companies have designed vehicles that meet their customers' aspirations for daily use. The domestics have spent a lot of time surveying their consumers, and recent cars reflect those preferences -- they're increasingly delivering what their buyers want. That includes packaging -- you're not seeing great-looking cars that have terrible headroom.

Another way of reading the survey is that automaker media campaigns are targeting the right consumers. In some cases, that means truth in advertising rather than castles in the air. A recent ad for the Chevrolet Malibu, for instance, is wall-to-wall facts about the car's fuel economy, which reaches 33 mpg on the highway. If you buy the car for that reason, you'll get what you wanted (or at least a close approximation of it).

It's interesting that in some ways these results are at odds with the University of Michigan American Customer Satisfaction Index, which recently found trouble spots for every American manufacturer (except Cadillac). But the index is based on longer-term ownership results, and it seems to indicate that owners might be falling out of love with some of their cars over time. Build quality, not the initial quality impression, is what looms large in customer satisfaction -- if parts are going to fall off, they generally won't do it in the first 90 days.

The survey's overall winner was Porsche, and that makes sense. For most people, Porsche is the ultimate aspirational brand. Finally buying one, maybe as a present to yourself, is the culmination of a lot of time poring through the catalogs. You're going to be predisposed to liking the car. Of course, Porsches actually do score in every meaningful category so that certainly helps.

A surprise winner
Some of the wins are pretty surprising. Chrysler won in the mainstream/popular brand category, despite regularly scraping the bottom of the barrel in Consumer Reports surveys. The win reflects more consideration going into Chrysler interior design (as on the new 300) as well as performance and handling. Chrysler did terribly in Michigan's Customer Satisfaction Index because the carmaker's frequency-of-repair record is pretty lousy. But customers are liking what they see (and feel) initially.

Another interesting one is the Ford Fusion's win as top premium mid-sized car. When Ford was churning out indifferent Tauruses and 500s (before Alan Mulally's dramatic entrance), this category would definitely have been won by a foreign car. Ford's eye came off the ball on mid-sized cars while it concentrated on SUVs, and it turned out sedans that only rental agencies loved. The Fusion is a huge step up.

Ford had seven wins in the survey (the most of any manufacturer), including the Fusion Hybrid, which trumped the Prius. Since Ford badly trails Toyota in actual hybrid sales, this suggests that Ford could do better in getting out the message that it has a high-quality domestic competitor that would leave buyers smiling.

And the very retro Dodge Challenger won as the top sporty car. I would have expected this category to go foreign, or at least to the Corvette. Since the Challenger has great styling and good performance but a bland, disappointing interior it's hardly a packaging champ.

American carmakers still have lots of challenges. Faced with competition, companies (and especially Toyota) are going to get both better and more competitive. Stung by criticism of its bottom-feeding Yaris subcompact, Toyota is bringing it back in 2012 with dramatic gains in performance, more standard features, and an interior that finally jettisons the licensed-from-Yugo feel of older models. It's also going after the younger buyers that are a critically important part of the market. Your move, Detroit.

Related:

• Customer Satisfaction Red Flags for Detroit (Except Cadillac)

Photo: Dodge