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Reliability should help rebirth of Buick
Photo
Mary Barra, then General Motors senior vice president, Global Product Development, introduces the 2013 Buick Encore at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Buick has made a comeback by appealing to younger buyers.
Associated Press
DETROIT
Buick, the brand that once was the pace car for the drive to the senior center, has made a comeback by appealing to buyers not yet ready for retirement.
U.S. sales rose 11 percent in 2014. In China, Buick’s biggest market, sales gained almost 14 percent.
This week, strong showings in two influential quality surveys are bringing good publicity to a nameplate that was inches from the grave when its parent company, General Motors, was in bankruptcy six years ago.
On Wednesday, Buick finished second to perennial winner Lexus in the annual dependability rankings by J.D. Power and Associates. A day earlier, it was the first U.S. brand to crack the top 10 in Consumer Reports magazine’s annual rankings, finishing seventh. The Buick Regal midsize car even bested the BMW 328i for top sports-sedan honors from the magazine.
It is all part of a turnaround at Buick led by some creative television ads, updated cars and the almost perfectly timed debut of the Buick Encore, a new small SUV that hit showrooms two years ago just as consumers were abandoning cars in favor of higher-sitting vehicles.
Buick has been on J.D. Power’s top-10 brand list for long-term reliability every year for the past decade, even winning top honors in 2007 and 2009. This year, the firm surveyed original owners of 2012 models. That helped Buick because all but one of its 2012 models had been in production for at least a year, and older models tend to have fewer problems than new ones, said Dave Sargent, J.D. Power’s global automotive vice president.
Also, Buick has older customers than other brands, and they tend to take better care of cars and complain less than younger buyers, Sargent said. All General Motors brands, which share many components, have seen reliability improvements for seven-straight years, he said.
Despite the gains, Buick has not returned to its heyday. U.S. sales of 229,000 last year were less than one-third of the 942,000 vehicles sold in 1984. And though the average age of a Buick buyer has fallen to 59, it’s still eight years older than the average for a U.S. car buyer, according to Kelley Blue Book.