J.D. Power just dropped its 2026 U.S. Customer Service Index (CSI) Study, and if you’ve ever sat in a dealer waiting room staring at a sad coffee machine wondering if your car has been forgotten in the back lot, this one’s for you.
The study surveyed over 51,000 vehicle owners and lessees to figure out which automakers are actually making the service experience worth your time — and which ones are still treating customers like an afterthought.
The Winners: Porsche, Mini, and the Satisfaction Crowd
For the second year running, Porsche claimed the top spot among premium brands, scoring 915 out of 1,000. Yes, the brand that charges you the equivalent of a small home for a car also manages to smile at you when you bring it in for service. How refreshing. Infiniti (912) and Lexus (900) weren’t far behind, continuing their tradition of making customers feel like they actually matter.
In the mass-market segment, Mini led the pack at 887, narrowly edging out Subaru (886) and Buick (882). Mini owners, apparently, are a satisfied bunch — though anyone who’s spent time in the enthusiast community already knew that. Ford, which has been on a quality improvement run lately, posted a respectable 875, giving the Blue Oval something to feel good about.
The Losers: A Stellantis Hat Trick (But Not the Good Kind)
Here’s where things get uncomfortable. All three brands at the bottom of the rankings — Maserati (790), Ram (824), and Chrysler (841) — belong to Stellantis. To be fair, Stellantis has already acknowledged its quality woes and recently brought 2,000 engineers on board to address vehicle reliability. But it turns out building a better car is only half the battle; you also have to not frustrate customers when they come in for service.
Ram’s position is especially notable given how many trucks roll off American lots. Ford sold nearly 830,000 F-Series trucks last year alone, and in the truck-specific segment rankings, Ram finished dead last — well behind Ford and Toyota. When your truck is one of the best-selling vehicles in the country, finishing at the back of the service satisfaction race is… not ideal.
The Bigger Picture: Dealers vs. Everyone Else
Even with overall satisfaction ticking up three points industry-wide (to 868 for mass market, 886 for premium), traditional dealers are still fighting an uphill battle. Aftermarket shops complete 62% of their service visits in under an hour. The average dealer takes 1.61 hours for mass-market customers and a staggering 2.46 hours for premium buyers. That’s a lot of time to contemplate whether the complimentary car wash was really worth it.
Then there’s the Tesla and Rivian effect. Customers who’ve come from direct-to-consumer brands are showing up at traditional dealers expecting app updates, mobile service, and digital everything — and finding, instead, a clipboard and a guy named Terry who’ll “be right with you.” Dealers that can bridge that gap with things like online booking, real-time service updates, and actually returning your car cleaner than it arrived have a real shot at winning people over.
And the data backs it up: when dealer satisfaction scores hit 950 or above, 88% of premium customers say they’ll come back to the same dealer. Loyalty is absolutely on the table; dealers just have to earn it.
Car brand loyalty dipped below 50% last year as buyers chased deals amid rising prices. That means every service visit is now a retention opportunity — or a reason for a customer to start browsing the competition’s website on the drive home. The brands that figure out how to make service feel less like a chore and more like part of the ownership experience are the ones that’ll keep customers coming back. The ones that don’t? Well, they’ll keep showing up on lists like this one.
It’ll be interesting to see how new technology, like AI scanners, impacts customer satisfaction.