Porsche, Genesis, and Ford have topped a new initial quality study. Overall quality is improvement, but infotainment remains an issue. BMW dominated with six segment awards, while Audi struggled. Ford is the undisputed recall king as the company conducted 153 campaigns last year. 2026 is shaping up to be slightly better as they’ve issued 51 recalls so far, which puts them well ahead of Stellantis (19), GM (17), and Toyota (15). While the recall crisis is widely known, the Blue Oval is celebrating today as they were the highest mainstream brand in JD Power’s latest initial quality study. The automaker only had 152 problems per 100 vehicles, which put them ahead of Nissan (156) and Buick (162). More: Ford Now Destroys One New Engine A Day, And It Thinks It’s Working Ford also received three awards for having the highest ranking vehicle in their segment. Honors went to the Mustang, F-150, and F-Series Super Duty. The automaker described the achievement as 16 years in the making and noted they had 41 fewer problems per 100 vehicles compared to last year. That’s a significant improvement and Lincoln climbed two spots to take sixth place among premium brands. Ford credited the strong showing to years of hard work and an effort to improve the infotainment experience. The company also brought various teams together and had suppliers come into the fold earlier to reduce problems at launch. The efforts seem to be working and CEO Jim Farley said, “Many doubted that an American company with a huge American workforce could compete with the world’s best on quality, let alone reach the top. But we put our heads down and worked together every day to deliver for our customers. Today, Ford is not only the most American automaker but also the gold standard for new vehicle quality.” Porsche Took The Top Spot While Ford placed third overall, Porsche took top honors as they only had 138 problems per 100 vehicles. Furthermore, the 911 was named the vehicle with the highest initial quality overall. The model also beat the Chevrolet Corvette to win the “premium sporty car” segment. Porsche Cars North America CEO Timo Resch remarked, “Winning this award speaks to the painstaking focus on even the smallest details that our engineers put into each of our vehicles to give our customers the standard of quality they rightly expect from Porsche.” A Handful Of Surprises Putting the stars aside, there were a handful of surprises as Genesis came in second place with 151 problems per 100 vehicles. That’s a big jump as the company came in 10th place last year at 183 PP100. Lexus fell from first to fourth, while Land Rover went from well-below average to slightly above. The latter company had 173 PP100, which was down from 208 last year. Audi came in dead last in 2025 with a staggering 269 problems per 100 vehicles. The luxury brand slashed that number to 225 this year, but it only bumped them up three spots. Speaking of last place, that dubious honor went to Infiniti as they had 235 problems per 100 vehicles. That’s down from 242 last year, and we can expect their ranking to improve now that the dated QX50 and QX55 are toast. Segment Winners While we’ve already mentioned some award winning vehicles, there are plenty of others. Cars that took home top honors include the Kia K4, Hyundai Sonata, and Cadillac CT4 as well as the BMW 2-, 5-, and 8-Series. On the crossover and SUV side, mainstream winners include the Nissan Rogue, Chevrolet Blazer, Hyundai Venue, and Subaru Ascent. The Chevrolet Tahoe and Toyota Sequoia also tied for top honors in the Large SUV segment. Premium models with the best initial quality include the Cadillac XT5 and Lexus NX as well as the BMW X2, X6, and X7. The Kia Carnival was named best minivan, while the Hyundai Santa Cruz got the nod for “mid-size” trucks. Study Findings Michael Gauthier / Carscoops The study examines problems experienced in the first 90 days of ownership and JD Power said overall new-vehicle quality “improved sharply this year, with fewer problems cited across nine of 10 categories evaluated.” In fact, the average fell from 192 to 175 this year. That being said, it’s important to remember quality may not mean what you think it does. A good example of this is that cup holders were the “biggest single contributor to the year-over-year improvement in initial quality based on more accessible location and capacity to hold a variety of sizes of cups/water bottles.” As for the biggest detractor, that was infotainment systems as “connectivity issues continue to strain [the] customer experience.” The number of reported problems climbed this year and issues with “Android Auto and Apple CarPlay connectivity account for an increase of 1.4 PP100 in reported problems, the largest single contributor to the year-over-year decline in infotainment quality.” Of course, automakers probably shouldn’t be blamed for issues with technology from Apple and Google. However, they’re a part of modern cars, even if a few companies try to squeeze them out.