JD Power survey ranks VW Polo as the ‘Best premium compact car’
In a news that would give the VW brand a much needed image boost, VW’s compact premium hatch, VW Polo has been rated highest in 2016 India Initial Quality Study conducted by notable company on consumer intelligence and Data analytics, JD Power.
The JD Power study measures problems faced by customers with their new vehicles during the first two to six months of the ownership. For this particular survey, JD Power had taken feedback from 8330 vehicle owners across 30 cities in India. Owners had been questioned on more than 200 problem symptoms in eight vehicle categories such as engine and transmission, driving experience, HVAC, vehicle exterior, features, controls and displays, vehicle interior, audio, entertainment and navigation and seats. All the problems were summarized as number of problems per 100 vehicles (PP100) and the vehicle model with the lowest PP100 score indicates quality performance and low occurrence of that problem.
With respect to the score, VW Polo had come up with only 55 PP100 in the premium compact segment. This score is much lesser than average of the segment which stood at 89 PP100 and the overall industry score which stood at 95 PP100. In fact, Polo was rated higher than its last year score in certain categories such as engine and transmission, HVAC, driving experience, vehicle interior and seats.
On being ranked highest in the J.D. Power 2016 India IQS Study, Dr. Andreas Lauermann, President and Managing Director, Volkswagen India Private Limited, said: “At Volkswagen, quality tops our focus during production. We have been listening to our customers and relentlessly working towards resolving the issues they face.” He further added, “We believe in manufacturing cars that are truly of global standards when it comes to quality irrespective of where they are manufactured. So, be it a car manufactured in India or elsewhere in Europe, it follows the same standards across and that is what sets us apart from the competition.”
In VW Polo and Vento, VW has an ageing product line and with the next generation models not in the immediate horizon, news like these should help VW garner positive consumer sentiment and help it translate into better sales figures.
