Kenworth ranks highest in heavy-duty truck customer satisfaction for over-the-road and pickup and delivery trucks for a third consecutive year — and also ranks highest in the vocational truck segment. Sterling Trucks ranks highest in dealer service, according to the J D Power and Associates 2007 Heavy-Duty Truck Customer Satisfaction Study.
Now in its 12th year, the study includes responses from 2,677 primary maintainers of two-year-old Class 8 heavy-duty trucks. The study focuses on owner-operators and smaller fleets with an average fleet size of about 47 trucks at a single location. The study also measures satisfaction with services received from an authorized truck dealer's service department.
Customer satisfaction is measured for four factors: performance, quality, warranty, and cost of ownership.
The study finds that while overall vehicle quality among heavy-duty trucks has improved notably since 2006, the total number of problems reported by customers remains higher than levels in 2005. Continuing a two-year trend, customers are more likely to report an engine-related problem and experience downtime as a result of the problem.
Sterling ranks highest in customer satisfaction with dealer service, performing particularly well in the dealer facility factor. Kenworth and International closely follow Sterling in the dealer service rankings, respectively.
“Sterling improves notably in dealer service performance since 2006 — with a 60-index-point increase — to rank highest in the 2007 study,” said Brian Etchells, senior research manager in the commercial vehicle group at J D Power.
Approximately 83 percent of customers who took their trucks to dealers for service indicate that the work was done right the first time.