J.D. Power and Associates released its benchmark study on initial vehicle quality today, and the Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge brands all showed improvement. In fact, the Chrysler Group improved faster than the industry as a whole.

“Even in the face of unprecedented challenges, the Detroit automakers are keeping their focus on designing and building high-quality vehicles, which is a precondition for long-term success,” David Sargent, vice president of automotive research at J.D. Power and Associates, said in a press release.

The J.D. Power study surveys vehicle owners and leasees after 90 days of ownership, asking about 228 possible problems in their vehicles.

Of the 10 most improved vehicles, five were from Chrysler, including the top three. The five vehicles from Chrysler Group are the Chrysler Sebring, Dodge Grand Caravan, Dodge Avenger, Jeep® Wrangler and Jeep Liberty.

The Chrysler Group improved 15 points on the survey, faster than the industry average of 10 points.

The results “demonstrate that the improvements we have been implementing over the past year are starting to show for the company as a whole and within each of the brands,” said Doug Betts, Senior Vice President – Quality, Chrysler Group LLC.

Among some of the highlights for the Chrysler Group:

- The Jeep brand improved by 30 points and moved up three rank positions. This jump is attributable primarily to a 47 point improvement for the Jeep Wrangler.

- The Chrysler PT Cruiser, which tied for first place in the Compact Multi Activity Vehicle segment.

- The Chrysler Sebring (sedan and convertible) finished fourth in the very competitive Midsize Car segment. But when factoring out just the Chrysler Sebring sedan, the Chrysler Sebring convertible tied the Nissan Altima for first place in the segment with a score of 81 points.

“What the J.D. Power IQS shows us is that we have some forward momentum,” Betts said. “We have figured out how to improve vehicles in production and have taken aggressive actions to continue that progress.

“During the course of 2008 and early 2009, Chrysler Group has made tremendous progress on quality, which we can see in our internal measures. The fact is that over last year, Chrysler has reduced its warranty claims by 30 percent. Our internal metrics confirm that we are currently operating with reliability that is better than it has ever been in company history. While the improvement is encouraging, we have by no means arrived at a resting place. With the implementation of Customer Satisfaction Teams (CSTs), Customer Promoter Score (CPS) and other initiatives, we are confident that we will continue to see improvements in our vehicle quality, which will exceed the pace of improvement in the industry as we did in the 2009 IQS.”

To see what David Sargent of J.D. Power had to say about Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge at the press conference announcing the results today, click on the video below.