#1:news Here's Proof that General Motors Really Has Changed for the Better

auto insurance - #1:news Here's Proof that General Motors Really Has Changed for the Better
Has General Motors (NYSE:GM) really made huge strides in the quality of its vehicles?

Let's put it this way: It wasn't much of a surprise to see Toyota (NYSE:TM) at the top of the latest J.D. Power Vehicle Dependability Study, released this past week. But if you haven't been following GM closely,
it might have been a surprise to see the General running neck-and-neck with its longtime Japanese nemesis.

What this J.D. Power study is all about
First, let's explain what we're talking about. J.D. Power's Vehicle Dependability Study is an annual study that measures problems in the third year of a vehicle's ownership. In other words, we're talking about 2013 model-year vehicles. Late last year, J.D. Power surveyed 33,560 people who have owned 2013-model-year vehicles since they were new, asking them about problems that have shown up in the previous 12 months.

(There's another annual J.D. Power study, the Initial Quality Study, that looks at problems in the first 90 days of ownership. That will come out in June.)

The idea is to see how an automaker's vehicles are holding up over time. J.D. Power ranks the individual brands by the number of reported problems per 100 vehicles, and then names the top three models in each of the major market segments.

So there are a couple of ways to "win" here. First, an automaker's brands can rank highly in the brandwide tallies. Second, an automaker can have a large number of models named in the top of their segments.

By both standards we can see that General Motors' four U.S. brands are turning in very strong results these days.

How GM compared with the world's best
Here's how the brand rankings turned out in this year's Vehicle Dependability Study.