Repair Shop Shock

Low scores

Despite the eye-popping price yourneighbor paid for the luxury car in theirdriveway, it may need to go into therepair shop more often than your mass-marketsedan. That's the conclusion of asurvey of owners of 3-year-old cars byJ. D. Power and Associates (www.jdpower.com), which shows that 9 high-end carmakes scored worse than the industryaverage. When asked about service visits,Mercedes-Benz owners reportedthat 48% of their shop trips were forrepairs rather than routine maintenance.BMW owners said that 47% oftheir visits were repair-related, andJaguar owners had a repair average of45%. : Those numbers don'tcompare favorably to the 35% industryaverage. Best on the list was Buick, at21%, followed by 3 Japanese makes—Toyota, Honda, and Lexus. At the bottomof the list was Land Rover, with62% of service visits for repairs.