How dependable will your new car be 3 years from now? J.D. Power and Associates released the U.S. Vehicle Dependability Study rankings. Guess who sits on the throne this year. Yes, it’s Porsche. It overtook last year’s 3-year old vehicle winners Buick and Jaguar. Lincoln grabbed the silver medal and the bronze was taken by Lexus and Buick. For 14 years until last year, Lexus had reigned the vehicle-dependability car kingdom.

Wondering what happened to Lexus? It isn’t exactly what you’re thinking. Lexus is not getting less dependable. It’s just that the competition is getting tougher and other automobiles are climbing higher. All car brands try their best to stand out. There are many dependable cars which are not really respected by the general public. Why? 36 brands were surveyed by J.D. Power and almost all of them had lesser problems compared to last year’s study. The brands with the biggest awareness gaps, according to the survey, were Cadillac, Ford, Hyundai, Lincoln and Mercury.

This year, each of Ford Motor Co.’s U.S. brands, Ford, Mercury and Lincoln were in the top 10 while Hyundai was No. 11 and Cadillac No. 12. The average score of the auto industry was 155 problems which was a lot better than last year’s average of 167. 14 brands beat the average score this year.

Car makers feel it is easier to make more dependable vehicles than convincing doubtful customers of the improvement they have made. They continually design and build quality automobiles and tell buyers about the same. But, the convincing takes a lot of time.

This year’s survey calculated the number of problems reported by original owners of 2007 model year vehicles, covering 198 different problem symptoms. The score reflected the number of problems reported per 100 vehicles. The lower the score, the better is the vehicle dependability. All but seven brands scored below 200, meaning less than two reported problems per vehicle over the last three years.

Lincoln, which finished eighth in 2009, rose to the second position this year and No. 9 Mercedes-Benz climbed 10 spots. The biggest bombshell, however, was Jaguar’s spot. It fell from last year’s first-place tie to No. 23 this year. Its new model, Sargent may have contributed majorly to the downfall. The 2007 Jaguars were built by Ford Motor Co., as were Land Rovers. Currently, the brands are owned by India’s Tata Motors. Germany’s Audi also showed a steep descent, sliding to No. 26 from No.12 a year earlier.

Land Rover, Suzuki and Volkswagen showed consistency. The same three brands finished at the bottom both years, but in a different order. This year, the lowest scores were Land Rover’s 255, below Suzuki’s 253 and Volkswagen’s 225.