For a second consecutive year, Kenworth ranks highest in heavy-duty truck customer satisfaction for over-the-road trucks, pick-up and delivery trucks, and dealer service, while International Truck and Engine ranks highest for vocational trucks. This is according to the J D Power and Associates 2006 Heavy-Duty Truck Customer Satisfaction Study.
Now in its 11th year, the study includes responses from 2,529 primary maintainers of two-year-old Class 8 heavy-duty trucks. It focuses on smaller fleets and owner-operators with an average fleet size of about 61 trucks at a single location.
Customer satisfaction for the three product segments is measured for four factors: performance, quality, warranty, and cost of ownership. In the over-the-road segment, satisfaction with the vehicle's sleeper is also measured.
Recent government mandates requiring heavy-duty trucks to lower emissions have negatively impacted customer satisfaction as the number of engine-related problems rises. Owners report their trucks were down an average of 4.1 times in the past year — up from 2.9 times in 2005. For owner-operators, the average down-time problems reported rose from an average of 6.6 days in 2005 to 9.7 days in 2006, with much of that increase attributed to engine-related problems.
Overall customer satisfaction for Class 8 trucks averages 744 index points on a 1,000-point scale. Owners of vocational Class 8 trucks report the highest satisfaction, while over-the-road customers report the lowest satisfaction. Over-the-road owners also report the most problems, with 310 problems per 100 (PP100) trucks. Pick-up and delivery truck owners report the fewest problems at 216 PP100, while vocational truck owners report 225 PP100.
Among the 78 percent of respondents who took their truck to a dealer for service, 81 percent indicate that the work was done right the first time. Among those whose vehicle was not fixed right the first time, it took an average of two return visits to fix the problem.
