ings demonstrate that American car manufacturers are perceived as lagging behind Japanese manufacturers even when the companies have demonstrated good reliability. Ford has models that are as reliable as Japanese models, but has not been able to effectively promote that quality image either to consumers in general or to the media. American manufacturers are perceived as being "behind" Japanese automakers in terms of quality, even as their actual quality has improved in recent years (Zarroli, 2005).
J. D. Power is different from Consumer Reports in that the former surveys actual owners while the latter conducts independent tests. Customer satisfaction is a key factor in retaining customers since existing customers can promote products far more effectively than a marketing campaign. Customers who are happy will extol the virtues of their purchases to friends and neighbors while customers who are unhappy with the quality of a car, the service they receive, or even their financing can affect the image of a brand for years. Customer satisfaction is ultimately a combination of many different factors, including not only the reliability of the car, but the way that customers are treated when they take the car for service, the expense associated with repairs, and even how others perceive the car. As already noted, there are indications that customers who purchase American cars are satisfied with them, but many American consumers are reluctant to make the American purchase and prefer Japanese or European-branded cars ("Buick, Jaguar," 2009).
One of the biggest image problems that American auto manufacturers face is that American cars are perceived by the American public as being behind their Japanese and European counterparts in reliability, styling, technology and in nearly every factor that is important to car buyers. The image problem was so acute in the late 1990s that General Motors actually used the phrase, "not...