Automakers scored worse than ever on this year’s J.D. Power Initial Quality Survey.
But it was a different story for General Motors.
GM dominated the study, earning the No. 1 ranking for Buick and placing four brands among the top eight. Only nine of the 33 brands surveyed across the industry showed improvement from the prior year, and GM accounted for four of those nine.
The 2022 IQS results are only the latest evidence of the gains GM has achieved since installing Canadian Tony Francavilla as vice president for global quality in 2016.
Under Francavilla, 65, the automaker put its ignition switch scandal in the past and consistently has become one of the industry’s top performers in various third-party quality assessments. As a result, Francavilla was named an Automotive News All-Star this week.
GM had three brands in the top 10 of this year’s J.D. Power U.S. Vehicle Dependability Study, with Buick ranking second and all four of the company’s brands scoring above average. It received five segment awards, tying Toyota for the best company-level performance.
The IQS results found the Chevrolet Corvette to be the industry’s highest-rated nameplate, and GM earned more model-level awards — nine — than any other automaker. GM also was the top-scoring automaker in the 2020 IQS, when six of its models topped their segment.
Francavilla credited the 2020 performance to “a focused effort across the entire GM enterprise from design to product development, manufacturing, customer care and aftersales, sales, service and marketing, our dealers and others.”
Before his appointment as vice president, Francavilla had a number of senior quality roles, including executive director of global supplier quality. He previously led manufacturing operations at GM plants in Lansing and Flint, Mich. He started at GM in 1979 as a co-op student in his native Canada and became managing director of GM Poland before returning to North America.