The Surprising Brand That Keeps Drivers Hooked More Than Porsche Or Lexus

Winning a customer is only one challenge for an automaker. An even bigger, and more important, task is hanging on to them, making them come back when they decide to change their ride because they like and trust the brand as well as the value and the quality of engineering backing it up. That’s a struggle for some companies, while others make it look so easy, a new study shows.

JD Power released its annual Automotive Brand Loyalty Study this week, highlighting the companies who seem to have their customers attached to ribbons of elastic.

Who Keeps Drivers Coming Back?

The study is divided into vehicle segments and the winners are a diverse bunch that include both domestic, Asian, and European brands. What they all have in common is loyalty percentages that are way higher than the industry average, which stands at just 49 percent.

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Porsche might be hemorrhaging sales in China as buyers there increasingly pick vehicles from local automakers, but its US customer base has its back. JD Power says Porsche has a 58.2 percent loyalty rating, the highest in the premium car segment, and comfortably ahead of second-placed Mercedes, who scored 49.7 percent.

Luxury vs Everyday Champions

But Lexus took home the premium SUV gong with a 57.4 percent rate ahead of BMW on 54 percent. Neither could match Toyota’s loyalty score in the mass market car segment, which at 62 percent makes even Porsche customers look fickle.

JD Power Automotive Brand Loyalty Study

Honda achieved 55.5 percent in that car category, but took gold in the mainstream SUV class with a 62 percent score of its own. Subaru bagged second with an also-impressive 60.6 percent.

Built Ford Faithful

One brand, though, has the kind of loyalty rate you’d think would be the preserve of automakers operating in Eastern Europe before the wall came down. That brand is Ford, which topped the truck category with an incredible 66.6 percent loyalty rate, leaving Toyota in second place on 61.2 percent.

JD Power notes that brand loyalty tends to dip when buyers switch to a different segment, and we imagine one of the reasons for Ford’s success here is that its F-Series-lovin’ customers are creatures of habit. F-150 for life, and all that.