Automakers scored worse than ever on this 12 months’s J.D. Energy Preliminary High quality Survey.

However it was a distinct story for Common Motors.

GM dominated the examine, incomes the No. 1 rating for Buick and inserting 4 manufacturers among the many prime eight. Solely 9 of the 33 manufacturers surveyed throughout the trade confirmed enchancment from the prior 12 months, and GM accounted for 4 of these 9.

The 2022 IQS outcomes are solely the most recent proof of the positive aspects GM has achieved since putting in Canadian Tony Francavilla as vp for international high quality in 2016. 

Underneath Francavilla, 65, the automaker put its ignition swap scandal up to now and persistently has turn into one of many trade’s prime performers in numerous third-party high quality assessments. Because of this, Francavilla was named an Automotive Information All-Star this week.

GM had three manufacturers within the prime 10 of this 12 months’s J.D. Energy U.S. Automobile Dependability Research, with Buick rating second and all 4 of the corporate’s manufacturers scoring above common. It obtained 5 section awards, tying Toyota for the perfect company-level efficiency.

The IQS outcomes discovered the Chevrolet Corvette to be the trade’s highest-rated nameplate, and GM earned extra model-level awards — 9 — than every other automaker. GM additionally was the top-scoring automaker within the 2020 IQS, when six of its fashions topped their section.

Francavilla credited the 2020 efficiency to “a centered effort throughout the whole GM enterprise from design to product improvement, manufacturing, buyer care and aftersales, gross sales, service and advertising and marketing, our sellers and others.”

Earlier than his appointment as vp, Francavilla had a variety of senior high quality roles, together with government director of world provider high quality. He beforehand led manufacturing operations at GM vegetation in Lansing and Flint, Mich. He began at GM in 1979 as a co-op scholar in his native Canada and have become managing director of GM Poland earlier than returning to North America.