Customer satisfaction with automobiles and light vehicles slips 1.2 percent to a score of 81 on the American Customer Satisfaction Index’s (ACSI) scale of 0 to 100. A year ago, the industry improved driver satisfaction, and sales were at record highs. This year, demand seems somewhat saturated, and total car sales are down 11.4 percent for the first half of 2017. So, too, is customer satisfaction for the industry, although individual nameplates post more gains than losses. Among the 25 automakers tracked by the ACSI, 12 improve from a year ago and only eight plates decline—four of which are domestic brands.

Foreign-made vehicles continue to have the highest driver satisfaction, and 77 percent of the above-average nameplates in the ACSI are imports. Many foreign-made cars are not part of the customer satisfaction downturn for the industry, and European automakers match Japanese and Korean manufacturers with an ACSI score of 82. The gap between international and domestic automakers widens as U.S. companies fall to 80.

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