Toyota Lands Lead in 2012 Motorist Choice Awards

The Toyota Prius V - shown with CEO Akio Toyoda - took one of nine awards for the Japanese maker.

Quality, as most automakers are quick to admit, has become the price of entry in today’s new car business.  And the latest studies suggest that the gap between brands is smaller than ever.  So, what are the factors that really differentiate one brand from another these days?

That’s what the Motorist Choice Awards intend to define.  Created by California-based research firms IntelliChoice and AutoPacific Inc., the balloting is meant to balance high customer satisfaction and low cost of ownership.

And by those measures, Toyota came out on top for 2012, taken nine of 30 possible awards with its various mainstream and luxury brands, with products including the Scion xD, Toyota Prius V and Lexus CT Hybrid.  European makers such as Mini and Mercedes-Benz, meanwhile, scored well in both “Popular” and “Premium” categories.

The joint study reflects the distinctive specialties of the two research firms.  AutoPacific traditionally focuses on quality and customer satisfaction surveys, IntelliChoice on issues related to cost of ownership.  That makes the 2012 Motorist Choice Awards different from the typical “Things-Gone-Right” or “Things-Gone-Wrong” study.

“The Motorist Choice Award methodology is designed to get to the core of what consumers want to know when making purchase decisions,” contends Eric Anderson, ownership cost database supervisor at IntelliChoice. “Through our analysis, we can identify vehicles that speak to their hearts and to their wallets. Based on our research, we’re proud to recommend these vehicles to consumers.”

For 2012, vehicles were divided into 15 separate lifestyle categories, with Popular and Premium winners chosen for each, based on feedback from 75,000 new vehicle buyers who recently purchased 2012 vehicles.

Toyota was well and by far the most successful manufacturer in the 2012 Motorist Choice Awards, landing wins in nine categories. That was more than all the domestic makers combined, with six wins.

Because of the methodology of the study, some vehicles actually topped the charts in multiple categories.  The Cadillac Escalade, for example, won as the Premium choice in the “Cargo Hauler,” “High Tech,” and “Performance” categories.  The Hyundai Equus, the Korean carmaker’s first premium-luxury model, topped the list in the “High Tech” and “Luxury Lifestyle” categories – though it isn’t clear why Hyundai’s answer to the likes of the BMW 7-Series was included among “Popular,” rather than “Premium” products, as were its targeted competitors.

The various General Motors brands, including Cadillac, topped five segments, as did Volkswagen with mainstream VW and Audi luxury lines.

Several makers that might be expected to score well were, in fact, completely absent from the victory list, most notably BMW, Honda and Nissan – while Land Rover, which normally ranks at the lower end of quality-based studies, took top honors among premium models in the “Youthful” category for its new Range Rover Evoque model.

The full list of winners: