American study: New cars are causing more and more problems

There is a well-known saying that there are no more bad cars. But maybe it’s time to swallow these words, because research by an American consumer organization would show that new cars are causing more and more problems.

“New cars are becoming more and more problematic,” says JD Power himself. In the organization’s annual Initial Quality Study, the number of problems per 100 cars continues to rise. From an average of 150 in 2021 to 180 in 2022 and 192 in 2023.

New technologies in particular cause problems

Why do new cars have more problems? According to the researchers, this is related to the increasing use and application of new technologies, with software in particular causing headaches for motorists.

Mobile phone chargers and electronic door handles

Incidentally, an average value of 192 problems in 100 cars does not mean that everyone parks on the side of the road with smoking hoods several times a month. A problem can also be a broken mobile phone charger and electronic door handles that sometimes do not work.

JD Power bases its findings on a survey of nearly 94,000 American new car buyers in 2023. They all answered no fewer than 223 questions. Notdeju!

The level of quality is falling in almost all categories

The quality of the driving experience remains roughly the same each year, but in all other categories the level of quality decreases. The biggest climbers – or falls, whatever you want to call it – are in the infotainment category (up 2.3 issues per 100) and controls and displays (up 3.2).

JD Power picked up some aspects from the research where cars are consistently underperforming: door handles (often no longer mechanical and sometimes defective), lane departure warning and forward collision warning (see things that aren’t there), and cell phone chargers (slow working or not ).