Customer satisfaction with major automakers has returned to its highest point in the nearly 20 years of the widely tracked American Customer Satisfaction Index.
The industry achieved an overall ranking of 84 out of 100, tying 2009 for its best-ever mark.
This year is the industry's most impressive performance, said David VanAmburg, managing director of ACSI. In 2009, customers were happy because vehicle prices hit rock bottom when the U.S. government launched the cash-for-clunkers incentives in the summer of 2009 during the depths of the Great Recession.
Prices have since rebounded -- but consumers are still satisfied. ACSI measures three-year satisfaction among new-vehicle buyers. That is a much longer evaluation period than J.D. Power and Associates' Initial Quality and APEAL studies that only measure consumers' impressions during the first 90 days they have a vehicle.