Ford sees big improvement in J.D. Power Initial Quality Study

Ford was the mainstream auto brand with the highest initial quality in J.D. Power's latest study, a milestone for the Dearborn automaker's years-long effort to turn around its quality issues whose warranty and recall costs weighed on its balance sheets and reputation.

Ford jumped from below average last year to third overall in the survey ranking 27 brands based on the total number of problems experienced by customers in the first 90 days of ownership. As the industry overall saw the most improvement since 1997, Porsche had the fewest issues with 138 problems per 100 vehicles followed by Genesis with 151 and Ford with 152.

"We're really proud of the progress we've made," Ford CEO Jim Farley said on a virtual briefing with media, "and we're really even more excited about what's ahead of us to be the highest quality manufacturer in all aspects of quality, not just initial quality, for many years to come."

Buick was sixth at 162 problems per 100 vehicles and Chevrolet ninth at 171. Lincoln, Jeep, GMC, Ram and Cadillac were all below the average of 175. Chrysler and Dodge didn't meet the study's award criteria. BMW had the most model-level and segment awards.

There were fewer problems cited across nine of 10 categories evaluated in the study. Infotainment was the anomaly. Problems with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay connectivity were the largest contributor to the year-over-year decline in infotainment quality.

"As more technology is introduced into vehicles, keeping the experience simple matters more than ever," Frank Hanley, senior director of auto benchmarking at JD Power, said in a statement. "The biggest gains in quality come from features that are easy to use - simple controls, less-intrusive driver assistance and software that works the way customers expect. When technology becomes too complicated, the likelihood of customers experiencing a problem rises considerably."

Costs to repair vehicles under warranty and through recalls at Ford Motor Co. have ballooned over recent years, making quarterly financial results unprofitable at times. In 2024, the company agreed to a $165 million consent order requiring an independent federal monitor to oversee Ford's recall processes, data analytics and compliance for at least three years. That came after a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigation found Ford failed to recall vehicles with defective rearview cameras in a timely manner.

The automaker set a record for the number of recalls issued in a single year in 2025: 153. Just under halfway through 2026, it leads competitors by dozens of recalls this year with 51.

But executives say the vehicles coming off its assembly lines now are some of the best-in-quality in the company's history. Ford tied Hyundai as the brand with the second-most segment awards, each with three. For Ford, those were the F-150, Mustang and Super Duty.

Ford traces its accomplishment back to efforts primarily set forth in 2023 that sought to reverse a reactive, "find-and-fix" approach to quality issues that had teams siloed in their own areas following buggy launches of the Ford Explorer and Lincoln Aviator SUVs, pandemic-induced supply-chain disruptions and growing recalls in the preceding years.

"We all know excitement alone doesn't sustain a brand," said Kumar Galhotra, who's now chief operating officer. "Reliability and durability builds trust, builds loyalty, and customer satisfaction."

A new industrial system led by Galhotra brought together hardware engineering, supply chain and manufacturing to tackle the weaknesses. It's focused on preventing issues before they occur.

The company identified three major areas that needed to be addressed: poor "robustness" in designs, defects caused in suppliers' factories and defects created in Ford's own factories, Galhotra said. Addressing those meant a cultural change, he said.

The organization set up cross-department teams for all major problems. Daily "problem-solving" sessions discussed the same issue every day until there was a solution. Non-manufacturing teams are spending more time in the plants than ever, and executive visits happen more regularly over the big, scripted affairs of yesteryears. It's an adoption of the philosophy of "gemba," a Japanese term that means "the real place," Galhotra said.

"It's about going to the source of value creation," he said, "and humbly learning from the people who know the work best: our operators."

The launches in early 2025 for the Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator have become the new blueprint that's being shared across Ford's global industrial system. Week-long gembas, or plant visits, ahead of vehicle launches include about 12 people per project auditing station by station, correcting process sheets, ensuring proper calibration of tools and training of workers, and speaking with plant employees about an issue. A plant can have 500 to 1,000 workstations. On average, those operators supply about eight ideas to address an issue, said Bryce Currie, chief manufacturing officer: "It's all about collaboration."

Finding its reliance on increasingly automated quality systems insufficient, Ford more than doubled its population of technical specialists to guide younger engineers through structured peer reviews, hiring about 315 since 2023. These "gray beards" lead mandatory design reviews and hunt for failures before a part gets to the plant floor.

Ford also changed out nearly two-thirds of its senior leadership across manufacturing, vehicle engineering and supply chain over the last four years by hiring outsiders and developing internal candidates. It's also making succession plans for those leaders to ensure learnings are passed onto the next generation to avoid mistakes of the past.

Nonetheless, technology still remains a valuable tool toward reaching quality goals. Ford has installed more advanced cameras and automated tools for identification and to create certain defects to fix that it physically cannot. Artificial intelligence can pick up on tiny anomalies based on the thousands of engines it's seen before.

Ford also changed its approach with suppliers. For the first time with its Expedition and Navigator launches, suppliers and employees from engineering, manufacturing and supply chain were all in the same room to observe parts and do reviews on vehicles before production started. Ford created more rigorous supplier quality efforts standards for accountability.

"We're working more closely than ever with suppliers to improve cost and quality," said Liz Door, chief supply chain officer. "Our total related warranty (cost) has improved over the past three years."

The shifts in thinking also extended to software, whose engineers are being embedded in the cross-functional teams, too. Ford was catching bugs late, because it wasn't taking advantage of the more rapid ability to update software, said Charles Poon, Ford vice president of vehicle hardware engineering. However, it couldn't take a "break things fast" approach found popularly in other consumer electronics like smartphones, he said. It had to account for the safety-critical nature of automobiles.

Over the last 18 months, it created a 40-person software quality assurance team, whose job is to look for errors and cracks in communication. Ford also scaled up more than 100,000 automated tests to look for such edge cases and test the software to its limits, Poon said.

"By applying these rigorous new cross-functional systems engineering standards to our most complex launches," he said, "we're proving that we can deliver incredible new digital experiences like panoramic screens without sacrificing an inch of safety or quality."

Long-term durability also is being addressed. Poon's 8,000 engineers are designing and testing to a new standard: the equivalent of 15 years or 225,000 miles. At Ford plants, an engine is torn down every day to look for issues compared to one every three months in collaboration with a more experienced engineer and less experienced ones.

"I tell my team we need to actually celebrate internal test failures," Poon said, "because every time we break apart in our testing regime, that is one less family stranded on the side of the road."

Galhotra said the changes needed to be systematic and weren't going to happen overnight. He couldn't provide an exact time for when recall numbers will subside, except that Ford is expecting a steady decline on new vehicles.

"As we more aggressively check and test and hear from customers about our older vehicles," Galhotra said, "especially those made between 2013 and 2020, we'll do what's right to take care of our customers, ensuring we don't repeat the mistakes of our past."

To mark the milestone, a giant banner will appear on the face of Ford's new world headquarters. Other signage will be on display at its plants and dealers. Newspaper promotions will appear in plant communities, and there will be additional marketing over the July 4 weekend. There also will be celebrations at Ford sites with employees who also will receive reward points that they can use to cash in on company merchandise and other perks. Quality also is an influential metric in executive compensation and white-collar bonuses.

"This is complex, hard work, and very, very important to our customers, and very important to the company," Galhotra said. "So, this being a very high priority for the company, for the customers, the compensation should be, or at least part of the compensation should be tied to this improvement."

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