Jaguar has always represented the pinnacle of luxury and a level of customer satisfaction other car makers envy.  And now the king of luxury autos has added another prize to its name.

Jaguar was ranked #1 in the J.D. Power and Associates 2009 Vehicle Dependability Study, knocking Lexus from the top spot for the first time in 14 years.  And the people at Patrick Jaguar, a Chicago Jaguar dealership, knowing the quality of vehicles they have been providing to Chicagoland all these years, are elated the Jag brand is finally being recognized with the honor of “Most Dependable.”  Running its Chicago Jaguar service center, the technicians at Patrick Jaguar have always touted the long-term reliability of Jags as well.

Chicago Jaguar owners have known it for a long time, too.  Most Jag drivers find their cars to be the most trouble-free, reliable cars they have ever owned.  And that’s to say nothing of their consistent enjoyment of their Jags’ capacity for turning heads, drawing compliments and providing endless hours of driving enjoyment in absolute comfort.

The dependability study measures problems experienced by original owners of three-year-old vehicles, in this case the 2006 model year, and was reconfigured by J.D. Power this year to include 202 problem symptoms across all areas of a vehicle.  Overall dependability was determined by the level of problems experienced per 100 vehicles.  Jaguar reported 30 percent fewer problems than the industry average and more than 50 percent fewer than brands near the bottom of the dependability rankings.  The study also found that Jaguar owners were less likely to have to replace large components than owners of other brands.

While some brands help their rankings by producing one car that ranks highest in a category, raising the scores of the company as a whole, Jaguar scored evenly across its cars’ segments.  So you can expect the same, excellent dependability from every car in the Jaguar line.

This “Most Dependable” distinction is a very big deal for the Chicago Jaguar dealership, as consumers are now more than ever keeping cars longer and shopping for cars that they can trust to last many years.

“In the current economic climate, consumers are delaying new-vehicle purchases and keeping their vehicles longer—the average age of a vehicle at trade-in has increased to 73 months in 2009 from 65 months in 2006,” said David Sargent, vice-president for automotive research at J.D. Power & Associates.  “The challenge that the brands have is everybody’s getting better all the time so you have to get better faster than everyone else.  It’s hard to turn these things around overnight.”

The accolades for long-term dependability are not standing alone, as the brand has had other recent quality and customer service achievements.  In 2008, Jaguar was ranked highest in the J.D. Power and Associates Sales Satisfaction Index Study and ranked as the top automotive brand in BusinessWeek‘s list of “Customer Service Champs”.