A new, widely followed survey shows that Chrysler is America’s worst car brand. Additionally, other data show that over the last several years, its sales have been declining. Its parent company wants to revive the brand, but that may be impossible.
The American Customer Satisfaction Index tracks dozens of product and service categories. These range from athletic shoes to banks to cell phones. Its most recent study is of cars and is known as the ACSI Automobile Study 2026. Its conclusions are based on 6,699 surveys that were in the field from July 2025 to June 2026.
Its auto research results are broken into two segments. One is mass market cars, and the other is luxury cars. Mass market cars include brands like Toyota (NYSE: TM | TM Price Prediction), Ford (NYSE: F), and Chevy. Luxury cars include auto brands like Mercedes, BMW, and Cadillac.
Both segments consider comfort, driving performance, safety, dependability, exterior and interior appearance, mobile apps, websites, technology, driving distance, and trade-in value.
The Automobile Study included 16 mass market brands that were rated on a scale of 1 to 100. The average score among these was 78. At the bottom, Chrysler’s score was 67. The brand is owned by Stellantis (NYSE: STLA). It also owns Jeep, Ram, and Dodge. Each of these also scored poorly.
At the top of the mass market brand list, Toyota had a score of 83. Japan’s largest car company often does well in research about brand quality. Subaru was second at 81. It also typically posts high scores in other research.
Chrysler has several problems. One is the number of models it has. The other is that its sales have been plunging. According to CNBC, “The Chrysler brand sold nearly 600,000 vehicles in 2005. In 2024, it sold fewer than 125,000 — an 80% decline in two decades.” One theory about why this has happened is that Stellantis has not made any investment in the brand and its product lineup.
There was a time when Chrysler was one of America’s Big Three car companies, along with Ford and GM (NYSE: GM). Today, it sells only two minivans, which are the Pacifica and Voyager.
Stellantis says it wants to turn Chrysler around. That would be nearly impossible. It would have to greatly expand its product lineup to include traditional SUVs and most likely sedans. SUVs would put it in competition with Stellantis’ Jeep brand. Pickups would put it in competition with its Ram brand.
For the time being, there is no reason to think Chrysler will do better. It has fallen apart so severely that a reset would cost billions of dollars. Stellantis has 15 other brands to attend to.
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