Porsche Continues to Rule Quality Ratings

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 11, 6:12PM EST · Published Sep 10, 6:15AM EDT

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Porsche Continues to Rule Quality Ratings — © porsche.com

Porsche does not sell many cars in the United States. However, the customers who buy its cars give them extraordinary ratings for quality, services and durability.

In the new J.D. Power study of the top 13 car models of 2018, Porsche cars and sport utility vehicles took three spots. The ratings were based on a scale with the highest score of 100. In first place was the Porsche 911, which is one of Porsche’s oldest models. The sports coupe received a rating of 94. Porsche’s crossover Macan was fifth with a score of 91. Its Cayenne full-sized SUV Cayenne was 13th with a score of 90.

Among other things, the figures show how much the decision to diversify away from its sports coupe models has benefited the company.

Luxury cars dominated, with J.D. Powers giving top spots to Lincoln, Lexus, BMW and Mercedes. Presumably, car companies with high-priced models have more money to spend on quality products. They also need to have a high level of service to keep up with expensive car consumer expectations.

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Porsche’s American sales make it among the smallest brands in the United States. Sales through August were 37,524, up from 36,178 in the same period of 2017. Sales of the 911, which once dominated the Porsche lineup, were only 6,208. Macan sales were 15,871, which makes it Porsche’s top-selling model. Sales of the Cayenne were 5,684, which also tops figures of any of Porsche’s sports cars. Sales of its Panamera sedan were 5,718. At the current sales rate, Porsche will be lucky to sell 50,000 cars in the United States this year.

Even one of Porsche’s least expensive vehicles is expensive by most measures. The base level Macan has a sticker price of $47,800. The cost of the model rises very quickly toward $100,000 with a large engine and a number of upgrade features. Other models are much more expensive. A high-end Panamera runs nearly $200,000.

Porsche may make cars that are among the best sold in the United States, but consumers have to pay dearly to own one.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.