"For many years, the most-watched measures of how well a vehicle was built involved tracking all the things that could go wrong once that hunk of metal was in your driveway. Yet no one really buys a particular car or truck based on nothing but a quality number; the majority of tire-kickers invest more emotion in their vehicle purchase than they do when buying, say, a new toaster. That's why J.D. Power annually surveys 83,000 new owners about what's gone right with their vehicles — and this year's results show that bigger often equals better. Many of the results J.D. Power draws from the 2013 U.S. Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL) survey sound like common sense: Carbuyers pay more up front for attractive vehicles, get more back when they sell them used and are more likely to buy from the same brand again. The insight comes from quantifying those attractions in terms carmakers can understand; vehicles with an APEAL score that's at least 100 points above the average for any given segment garner $1,800 more per sale than those whose scores lag the average by a similar amount."
