Hyundai and Mini have walked away with top honours in the 2021 National Automobile Dealers’ Association (NADA) Dealer Satisfaction Index Survey (DSI) for passenger and light commercial vehicles, while Mitsubishi was the most improved brand.

Gold winners in this segment were Suzuki, Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, Mitsubishi, Mazda, Lexus, Volvo, Kia, BMW, Renault and Ford.

Silver winners were Mahindra, Volkswagen, Peugeot-Citroёn and Subaru, with Isuzu, Audi, Nissan, Datsun and Fiat bronze winners.

In the commercial vehicle section of the survey, Hino clinched the platinum award, with MAN, Mercedes-Benz Bus and Mercedes-Benz Trucks all awarded gold.

MAN was also the most improved brand.

Silver went to Isuzu Trucks, Fuso, UD Trucks and FAW. There were no bronze award winners in the 2021 survey.

The 2021 NADA DSI followed the survey’s suspension in 2020 owing to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Thirty-nine independently researched brands formed part of the survey this year.

A total of 1 223 completed responses were received, 1 054 of which were from passenger and light commercial vehicle dealerships, and 169 from commercial vehicle dealerships. 

The survey, which marks its silver anniversary this year, is carried out every year to monitor the health of the relationship between dealers and their respective manufacturers. 

It also provides the dealer body with a platform to provide manufacturers and importers with the necessary feedback from dealers.

Lightstone, responsible for conducting the research since the introduction of the project in 1996, notes that despite the overall DSI score decreasing by 1% this year to 76.1%, the results remain the second highest score recorded since 2003. 

“While the Covid-19 pandemic forced us to abandon the survey in 2020, we were extremely happy that we were able to complete the research this year,” says NADA chairperson Mark Dommisse.

“The survey this year included questions about the support that dealers received from their respective brand during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Our warm congratulations go to all the platinum, gold, silver and bronze award winners and we hope to see more manufacturers moving to the gold and platinum award categories during the next round of evaluations in 2022."