J.D. Power's 2022 Most Dependable Cars

J.D. Power & Co. is back with its annual survey of the most dependable cars for 2022. Rather than an evaluation of current models, this is a look back at the dependability demonstrated by 2019 cars and trucks over the last three years of use.

We’ve built a slide show highlighting the top-finishing vehicles in each of the product classes identified by J.D. Power, showing the top three except in cases where there were fewer than three contestants.

Looking at brands, the Korean brands of the Hyundai Motors Group, Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis, grabbed three of the top four spots, with Buick squeezing in at number two, between number one Kia and number three Genesis. They were followed by Toyota and its premium brand, Lexus.

These brand finishes foreshadow the scores for individual models, which saw vehicles from the Hyundai and Toyota groups top eight of the categories. General Motors scored five first-place finishes. Mainstream brands generally finished better than premium brands because the new technology that tends to debut on more expensive models is also typically the source of more customer complaints.

Indeed, seven of the top ten problem areas listed by customers are related to vehicles’ infotainment systems. The good news is that those aren’t the sort of problems that strand drivers at the side of a cold, dark highway. However, it is worth noting that one of these “problems” is dissatisfaction with the number of USB plugs in a vehicle.

Related:J.D. Power's Most Dependable Cars

The car had that number of plugs in it when the customer bought it, so to ding the manufacturer for that three years later as a source of dependability woes seems like a misapplication of the word “dependable.”