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Johannesburg - Toyota has come out on top in terms in the latest vehicle quality survey conducted in South Africa by Ipsos, the international market research company.
The recently-announced results are derived from a detailed survey conducted in 2016 and involving more than 7000 owners of vehicles from 17 brands.
Toyota collected 10 gold awards in the various categories, compared to eight for Nissan, six for Volkswagen, five for Audi, two for Ford and one each for Opel and Renault.
Few product defects
Patrick Busschau, Ipsos Automotive Business Unit Director commended all brands, said: "The scores in this research can be equated to the average number of product-related defects, problems or issues reported by customers at approximately three months of ownership.
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"As a result the lower the score the better as this is indicative of a fewer number of problems reported. In all cases customers included in the survey have purchased their vehicles new from the various branded franchised dealerships in South Africa."
Gold awards
More than one gold award was earned in some of the categories where two or more vehicles or brands both qualified and could not be separated for the gold award in terms of the number of problems reported per 100 vehicles (PP100).
Audi, Volkswagen, and Toyota each collected four gold awards in the Passenger Car category, with Nissan taking three and Ford bagging two.
Audi won gold for Overall Passenger Car Brand, Top Hatch (A3 Sportback), Medium Sedan (A5 Sportback) and Top Sedan (A3). Toyota’s golds came in the Small Hatch (Yaris), Small Sedan (Corolla Quest), Multi-Purpose Vehicle (Avanza) and Local Passenger Car Manufacturing Plant (tied with Volkswagen).
Entry level cars
Volkswagen’s gold awards were achieved in the Small Hatch (Polo), Small Sedan (Polo), Volume Passenger Car Brand (tied with Nissan) and Local Passenger Car Manufacturing Plant (tied with Toyota) categories.
Nissan collected gold in the Entry Level (Micra), Small Sedan (Almera) and Volume Passenger Car Brand (tied with Volkswagen) categories. Ford’s Mustang collected two gold awards, for Sports Coupe and New Passenger Car.
Gold winners in the Recreational Vehicle category were Audi Q5 (Small RV), Toyota Prado (Large RV), while Renault Captur and Opel Mokka shared the honours for New Recreational Vehicle.
Nissan scooped the most awards in the Light Commercial Vehicle category, with five gold awards for the Three-Quarter Ton Pickup (NP200), Petrol Double Cab (Hardbody), Diesel Double Cab (Navara), One Ton Single Cab Brand (tied with Toyota), One Ton Double Cab Brand (tied with Volkswagen).
Toyota collected four gold awards for Petrol Single Cab (Hilux), Diesel Single Cab (Hilux), One-Ton Single Cab LCV Brand (tied with Nissan) and Best Local LCV factory.
The only other brand to collect gold awards in the LCV category was Volkswagen, for Overall Light Commercial Vehicle Brand and One Ton Double Cab Brand (tied with Nissan).
Best performing vehicle
The best performing vehicle in the Ipsos Vehicle Quality Survey (VQS) was the Audi A3 Sportback, which topped the Passenger Car rankings with 27 problems reported per 100 vehicles (PP100). The Audi Q5 topped the Recreational category with a score of 33 PP100. The best performing Light Commercial Vehicle was the Toyota Hilux Petrol Single Cab with a score of 43 PP100.
