Top 10 Best Luxury Car Dealerships

Jaguar may be just starting to reinvigorate a conservative, slow-selling model lineup and appeal to younger buyers, but as it stands the brand's dealer experience is tops. Jaguar placed first overall in J.D. Power's combined surveys, with a strong first-place ranking of 912 on the SSI, 21 points above its closest competitor, Cadillac, as well as a closely ranked fourth place on the CSI. "Jaguar has traditionally scored very strong in the dealership facility itself, including the sales process and delivery," says J.D. Power's Gauer. These ratings are backed up by Strategic Vision results, which ***

Cadillac has a very strong showing in both the sales and after-sales aspects, with a second-place ranking in SSI and a third-place ranking in CSI. The other surveys also rank Caddy near the top: third in overall dealer experience by AutoPacific and sixth in overall dealership experience by Strategic Vision. "Cadillac has done a consistently good job over the years in the dealership experience area," says AutoPacific President George Peterson. The Luxury Institute CEO Milton Pedraza says that Cadillac posts a consistently strong showing in the sales area because its sales force takes the time t ***

Lexus has seen top ranks in both sales and service since it shook up the business of how luxury cars are sold and serviced when it launched in 1989. Lexus' dealership facilities ***

Ford Motor Company's American luxury brand has quite consistently placed high in customer satisfaction with the dealership experience over the past several years. Lincoln even held first place in J.D. Power's Customer Service Index for 2005, and while it fell slightly in that post-sale category for 2006, it did even better with regard to the sales process (SSI). After a brief period of trying in vein to be a European-flavored luxury make, Lincoln has over the past several years refocused on its core buyers in Middle America, who seek a very traditional yet stylish kind of luxury vehicle. ***

The racy German sports-car maker has long stood out for intimate post-sale service, and although the brand ranks 15th in J.D. Power's CSI, it ranks first in "experience with the service department," according to Strategic Vision. Despite rising sales and less exclusivity for the brand due to popular models like the Boxster and Cayenne, Porsche is still doing well to maintain satisfaction with the sales experience. "Porsche has made an effort to give a more uniform look to its dealerships and also offer more uniform customer treatment," says J.D. Power's Gauer. He adds that the brand continues ***

Volvo fell slightly in post-sale customer service for 2006, according to J.D. Power, and this is confirmed with an 11th-place finish in Strategic Vision's overall measure of satisfaction with the dealer experience as well as a 10th-place ranking in AutoPacific's assessment. That said, the brand continues to be regarded highly for the sales experience, with a stable, well-established network of dealerships and service that has arguably become better under Ford's Premier Automotive Group umbrella, despite the pressures of rising sales and an expanding model line. ***

BMW stands as the top-ranked brand for satisfaction with the overall dealer experience, according to Strategic Vision, and ranks as fifth overall, according to AutoPacific. And the brand is the envy of the industry in both retaining existing customers and conquesting new ones. Yet in J.D. Power's annual surveys, the brand ranks quite low. Some sources attribute this to the nature of BMW owners, who do tend to be younger, more affluent and more critical than those of most other luxury brands. Factor in the greater level of detail in the J.D. Power survey, and that may be why. We expect BMW to m ***

Infiniti is a longtime champion in J.D. Power's surveys, especially in the post-sale (CSI) area, but has seen significant drops in the CSI this year and earned a lowly 21st-place ranking in Strategic Vision's latest measurement of overall satisfaction with the dealership experience. This decline may simply be due to how dealerships handled a particular product issue, but only time ***

Lackluster performance in post-sales satisfaction puts this brand 13th overall, and barely in the top 10. It ranked 19th in dealer-experience satisfaction as measured by AutoPacific. That's surprisingly low, says AutoPacific President George Peterson. Poor post-sale satisfaction could be tied to rapid expansion in both sales and its model line, he says, adding that dealerships are pushing the limits of service capacity at the expense of customer satisfaction. Mercedes-Benz spokesperson Donna Boland agrees that the brand has been "in the process of expanding to meet service needs," but says tha ***

Acura used to be a customer-satisfaction darling, with top rankings across the board. But recently the brand's satisfaction scores have fallen, confirmed by a 20th-place rank overall according to AutoPacific, and a 17th-place finish among all brands by Strategic Vision. The brand's dealership experience may be better than it looks than the numbers alone would imply. Acura customers are younger than those of other luxury brands, says J.D. Power's Tom Gauer. And a younger pool of buyers tends to be more critical and more difficult to please. ***