J.D. Power and Associates

J.D. Power and Associates is a global marketing information services firm founded in 1968 which provides consumer ratings on goods from cars to restaurants. It is best known for surveying consumers to provide information on both new car quality and extended life performance.

The company is a business unit of the Information and Media Services Group of McGraw-Hill, who purchased it from James David Power III in 2005. Its service offerings include public and proprietary research, consulting, training, and automotive forecasting.^{[citation needed]} It was ISO 9001 certified in 2000.^{[citation needed]}

This article or section deals primarily with the United Kingdom and does not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve the article or discuss the issue on the talk page.

In the United Kingdom, the J.D. Power car survey is a supposedly-independent survey of all cars that have reached two years of age at the time of publication. It consists of comments and ratings entirely from the members of the public who bought the cars new two years previously, and are thus in a more meaningful position to comment on the car than anyone testing it for a few days. Satisfaction is based on a number of different criteria, and when the many thousands of marks in each area for each car are added up, an overall score is available. The list usually comprises of about 130 cars and is published every year in the UK, where it is a renowned source of influence amongst keen motorists.

While J.D. Power claims its studies, reviews, and results are authoritative and non-biased, in actuality, it's the opposite. J.D. Power sells the right to highest rankings/ratings to the highest-paying advertisers, or 'bidders.' Unlike Consumer Reports, which is non-profit and unbiased, J.D. Power's mission is misleading and it is often noted that J.D. Power is not really a truthful ratings organization -- the pay-for-rating approach is the company's business model. There are ratings, but no testing.

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