If you’ve been skeptical of the huge screens and software taking over the automotive experience, here’s some hot, juicy validation. JD Power has released a new Component Quality Report, “a complete benchmark of component-level vehicle quality,” highlighting which parts of new cars are giving owners the most trouble. As it stands, “infotainment accounts for 25% of all vehicle problems and is the only category to worsen year over year.”
One important concession: JD Power’s “worsen” phrasing is a little slanted—the real growing gap in satisfaction is more that other areas have improved while infotainment has not. But the fact remains that infotainment is a bigger percentage of car owner (and dealer tech) headaches now than it’s ever been.
The target audience of the full report is OEMs and automotive suppliers. JD Power aggregates a huge haul of data around repairs on new cars, and then organizes it so the companies making parts can see what’s working and what isn’t. The 2026 U.S. Multimedia Quality and Satisfaction Study, a breakout of the larger CQR portfolio, is “based on responses from 78,514 purchasers and lessees of new 2026 model-year vehicles who were surveyed after 90 days of ownership.”
The empirical evidence that screens are not living up to the promise of making driving easier is right here: “Multimedia-related problems are essentially unchanged year over year at 42.4 problems per 100 vehicles (PP100), causing multimedia’s share of total vehicle problems to rise to 25%, accounting for the five most frequently reported vehicle problems.”
The main takeaway JD Power’s analysts are seeing is that while overall vehicle quality is improving, infotainment is the one place that isn’t keeping up.
Part of that might have to do with customers’ ever-increasing expectations of what their car’s screen should be able to let them do—there’s always a little subjective murkiness in studies like this. But I do think it’s pretty wild that automakers, some of the largest corporations on Earth, still seem to be struggling with software.
As a car enthusiast and a consumer, it’s frustrating as hell. As far as I’m concerned, the optimal automotive UI is a red/blue knob for climate and a smartphone mount for navigation. I’m not going to try to convince everyone to get to that level, but as a person who drives dozens of new cars a year, I feel pretty strongly that big screens solve nothing and, if anything, introduce problems that never need to exist.
During recent week-long test drives with both the GMC Sierra EV and Hummer EV (both of which I actually mostly liked), both vehicles frequently served me a “distracted driver” alert while trying to perform simple operations on the main screen. By the vehicles’ own logic, their infotainment was not safe to use while in motion. Another particularly offensive example of over-screening is the BMW M5 Touring—taking a phone call in that thing turns the cinema-sized display into a blanket of black pixels just to center-screen your caller’s phone number.
But as of now, my most hated screen situation has to belong to Toyota. The main display in high-feature Toyota trucks is so large you literally have to peer over it to see the road. And when you change drive modes, in anything from a Camry to a Tacoma, the gauge cluster makes you sit through a seven-second (I timed it) animation.
Sorry for the rant. The real reason I’m mad is that I know the companies making these things don’t care how janky and unsafe they are. Screen-based controls and displays are far cheaper to build than mechanical knobs. So that’s what we’re going to keep getting.
Here’s hoping some automakers at least take heed of this JD Power study and start improving software QC. You can check out the whole study and data on JD Power, but you need an enterprise-level subscription (very expensive) to deep-dive into everything.
Want to rant about car screens? You know where to find me: [email protected]
Read the full article here