Toyota Canada Gets Another Plant Quality Award
Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada’s South Plant has yet again been recognized for its quality. It received a J.D. Power Plant Quality Award in the J.D. Power 2021 Initial Quality Study, marking its 20th plant quality award in 30 years.
Each year, J.D. Power carries out the Initial Quality Study, which looks at survey responses from vehicle owners 90 days after their purchase. Vehicle rankings are based on the number of customer-reported malfunctions per vehicle, while plant rankings are derived from the rankings of the vehicles they produce.
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“TMMC has won many Plant Quality Awards over the years and is, without question, among the highest-quality automotive assembly facilities in the world” said Dave Sargent, Vice President of Automotive Quality at J.D. Power. “This latest award is testament to continued excellence by everyone involved.”
TMMC currently builds four vehicles for the North American market — the Toyota RAV4, RAV4 Hybrid, Lexus RX 350, and RX 450h — across three different plants in Ontario, Canada. This year, it was Cambridge’s South Plant responsible for making the Lexus RX that won the J.D. Power award. It won a “silver” award, though TMMC has won multiple platinum awards in the past.
J.D. Power awards have become such a meme that when I went on a hike with my wife the other day, we overheard two guys joking about those infamous Chevrolet commercials. Yes, even in the middle of a sparsely populated Ohio forest, someone, somewhere, is making fun of J.D. Power. If only I had felt confident in my Mahk impression, I might have pitched in with my own commentary.
But for all the flak J.D. Power has received, the organization is actually legit. Sure, it makes money by asking manufacturers to pay for the rights to access survey results and mention the J.D. Power name in ads — which Chevrolet has clearly been more than happy to do — but in theory, the survey methodology it uses is unbiased. Certainly, there are other independent nonprofit organizations that agree that when it comes to quality and reliability, most manufacturers struggle to top Toyota.
Kurt Verlin was born in France and lives in the United States. Throughout his life he was always told French was the language of romance, but it was English he fell in love with. He likes cats, music, cars, 30 Rock, Formula 1, and pretending to be a race car driver in simulators; but most of all, he just likes to write about it all. See more articles by Kurt.