J.D. Power has released their 2021 review of customer service at car dealerships throughout the United States. Unlike the quality surveys, where Land Rover and Tesla anchor the bottom to make the Mopars look good, the customer service index is anchored by Mopar brands—with all but Dodge taking the bottom slots. (Maserati, along with Tesla and Fiat, were left out due to low sample sizes.)
As you can see, the top brand for customer service was Mini, which is made by and usually paired with BMW. Second best went to General Motors’ highest-reliability brand, Buick, while third, oddly, went to a brand barely alive in the United States, Mitsubishi. Overall, GM did very well, with all its brands above average (and above Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, and Ford); even its premium brand, Cadillac, came within shouting distance of Lexus and beat Lincoln, sitting solidly above average.
Chrysler Corporation, Daimler-Benz, and FCA/Fiat’s Chrysler Group all pursued an active policy of merging every brand into the same dealerships; the downside of this shows up on the chart, where all the brands end up with the same poor ratings. If not for Volkswagen, Stellantis would have had an unparalleled sweep of the bottom ranks (Alfa Romeo came in under Land Rover as the worst premium brand; Hyundai’s Genesis, incidentally, did not hit the average.)
The good news is that, without standard deviations being published, it is hard to tell if the Mopar dealers are really that bad, or if it’s just the luck of the survey. Was there a statistical dead heat between Dodge, Ford, Hyundai, and Mazda?
Regardless, these results should be another wake-up call to Stellantis’ leadership. Dealership issues need to be addressed. Not all of the problems are at the dealership; Ma Mopar has been cheap with diagnostic time and tight with book times on warranty work, even if Mopar’s traditionally been generous with giving customers out-of-warranty satisfaction. Prettier dealerships with ever-larger arches won’t help fix this; working with dealerships and loosening the purse strings on warranty repairs might.
I took my Wife’s 2017 300C to the dealer for a knocking sound in the right wheel area at 7am sharp on a Monday in Jan. 2021. they had the car for 2 days. I had to call them? after a day! and was told mechanic/tech still looking at it??? then 2 days pass and then I got called and they said nothing was wrong??? what a joke! you could feel the knock through the steering wheel! and hear it-a rotational thump, when I said okay but let me go on a ride with your mechanic so he can hear, and feel, what I feel, and hear, everyday, they declined! the car was right on 59950 miles, 50 miles, left of the FCA drive train warrantee. hmm??? I then took car to a private shop, 1 hour in, they say bad cv joint, I didn’t even go back to Chrysler CDJR dealer! as I had a extra warrantee from the GM dealer I bought the car from In Ohio. I live In Mich. I let private shop do repair under the GM Buick dealership extra warrantee I got with the car. It kills me that CDJR in Southfield MI. said their was no problem-LOL Terrible service, and again they denied the obvious rotational knock that you could hear and feel! I will never go back! and I’m a MOPAR NUT! I feel they didn’t want to repair it 50 miles from being out of warrantee! then they also tried to tell me too check tires, and oh yeah tried to upsell me on oil changes, and alignment, and tie rods, for $1500.00 which it did not need! the Private shop checked them right in front of me and said bad cv, not tie rods, or tires-which were new! the joke was on me! I love our 300C but I wont go to a CDJR dealer anymore for any repairs unless its free work for a recall!
Is your particular vehicle AWD? (all-wheel drive) If not, there is no CV joint in the front end.
Yes AWD! lol. it had play in it from side to side at wheel and engine sides. mechanic at private shop had me come look at it while car was on hoist. CDJR dealer wouldn’t do that. I don’t even think they physically tried to see if it had play in it! while it sat there for 2 days!