Brand loyalty

[pb82gh3]

The Sunday Times have published a league table about cars and brand loyalty. Interestingly Honda don't figure in the top ten.  Top of the shop is Audi with 49.4% of drivers who will consider moving to another brand, 10th is Renault at 73.55%
4 of the top 5 are German. This implies that  3/4 or more  of Honda drivers would consider moving to another brand.
I get the impression on this forum that most people are impressed with their Honda's , so what's going on?

[culzean]

in most 'polls' as well as car of the year etc. German cars always do well,  wonder where they get the 'poll' results from - its almost as though German car marques are willing to wine and dine and maybe even a few brown envelopes - who knows - German cars don't do so well in the reliability stakes these days, VW-Audi group have been caught with their pants around their ankles fiddling emission figures.  Japanese cars are in general far superior in value for money and reliability (and running costs,  which is a big part of reliability really as parts don't fail and need replacing).

Does the poll include company car drivers I wonder ? The normally seem to go for German cars because of badge snobbery, (and they don't have to pay the repair bills).

[peteo48]

Yes - I find these figures a bit odd. You have to contrast them with the findings in Which indicating that the Honda Jazz was the most popular car amongst its subscribers and certainly the highest rated - so much so that a few years ago they ran a feature called "Jazz Club" profiling its loyal customer base.

[Ozzie]

Maybe Honda is a minority brand that they didn't have a high enough response to the survey??
A quick glance on Auto Trader, and 453,000 cars are for sale:
12,800 Hondas
30,000 Audi
37,000 BMW
33,000 VW
44,000 Vauxhall
51,000 Fords

[madasafish]

A car brand can be as reliable as it likes but company car drivers do not give a damn.. Unless it leaves them stranded, they don't care if the engine wrong light comes on 20 times a year. Someone else pays.

Equally, there is a section of the car  driving public to whom looks and convenience are all. By all reviews the Vauxhall Mokka is a noisy piece of bull excrement but it looks nice.  So it sells well. And it is nice round town.. And it's cheap on PCP - £229 per month..


If a car is expensive but looks - well boring - or drives - well boring or has fewer gizmos - well boring.. it's a Honda.

[Rory]

I remember when we got our first Jazz in 2003 - my wife was quite reluctant and another customer in the showroom said "once you've had a Honda you won't want anything else."

Sure enough, when we came to change it in 2009 my wife didn't even want to look at anything else - it was the easiest car purchase I've ever made.

Fast forward to last year when we wanted to change it again - the HR-V seemed stupidly expensive and the mk3 Jazz was delayed.  So we bought something else.   Honda canning our excellent local dealer and appointing a bunch of muppets in their place also made the decision easier.

[Jazzdriver]

Apart from the emissions issue, VW/Audi have produced a number of engines with serious defects and they have been unhelpful to their customers in sorting the problems out.  Yet people talk of German engineering excellence.  Audi have expensive plastics in their cabins.  Audi make sure that everything the driver touches seems tactile and high quality.  This makes people think that the engines must be good, but that is not necessarily the case.

[jazzway]

Apart from the emissions issue, VW/Audi have produced a number of engines with serious defects and they have been unhelpful to their customers in sorting the problems out.  Yet people talk of German engineering excellence.  Audi have expensive plastics in their cabins.  Audi make sure that everything the driver touches seems tactile and high quality.  This makes people think that the engines must be good, but that is not necessarily the case.

Their good oiled marketing machine was the only thing that worked. Now it's time for VAG to quit making cars!