Is Car Brand Loyalty Still a Thing?

From Honda’s lost spark to Ford’s changing priorities, I ask whether familiar badges still offer the personality, reassurance and value that once kept us coming back

If your favourite car company stopped making the cars you loved, would you still owe it your loyalty? Increasingly, I look at some of these brands and wonder whether the customer has changed, or whether the company has simply wandered off in a different direction and left loyal customers waiting outside the showroom, deposits in hand.

Car brand loyalty used to feel like part of your identity. You were a Mercedes guy or a BMW guy, a Ford guy or a Vauxhall guy. In America, it was Ford versus GM; in Australia, Holden versus Ford could practically be a family inheritance. You could change your job, your postcode, possibly even your partner, but your allegiance to the car brand remained.

Those brands meant something. They had personalities, and we had fairly firm ideas about the personalities of the people who bought them. If you were sensible and safety-conscious, you bought a Volvo. If you wanted something dependable that quietly got on with its job, you bought a Toyota. If your uncle had a Toyota and you wanted that dependability with a little more driver engagement, you bought a Honda.

If you had a Ford Capri, there was a reasonable chance of a hairy chest and a medallion. If you had a Jaguar, you probably owned a rather nice brolly.

Yes, stereotypes. Affectionate ones, mostly. But they worked because those cars and companies had identities we recognised. You could relate to what you believed the badge said about you, and once you found your automotive comfort zone, you often stayed there for years, decades, perhaps forever.

Will that relationship survive? And if it does, what exactly will we still be loyal to?

When the dealership felt like the family doctor

There were people who returned to the same dealership, to the same salesperson, every few years and simply bought their next car. New car, same badge. The relationship could continue for decades, with the salesperson becoming a bit like the family doctor, except the appointment ended with you agreeing on metallic paint and a protection package rather than collecting a prescription.

You knew them; they knew what you liked. You understood the controls, the driving position and roughly what the next model would feel like. There was reassurance in all of that. Buying another car was a familiar process. Today, considering an unfamiliar manufacturer can involve fresh questions about the warranty, parts supply and the ownership experience.

Of course, people have always shopped around. Deals mattered then, too. Company-car lists, family budgets and whatever happened to be sitting on the forecourt all influenced the next purchase. But the tribal element certainly felt stronger to me. People described themselves through the badge on their bonnet.

What the car brand loyalty research actually says

Escalent’s 2026 EVForward Brand DeepDive, reported by Car Dealership Guy, found that just 46% of current electric-car owners said they were likely to buy their next vehicle from the same brand. Among buyers classified as resistant to EVs, the figure was 68%.

That is American research measuring intentions. Some owners will be undecided, and the publicly accessible reporting does not provide the complete questionnaire or EV-owner subgroup size. Even with those qualifications, it suggests plenty of scope for manufacturers to win customers from one another.

For a British perspective, Deloitte reports that 39% of UK consumers bought their current car from the same brand as their previous one. When choosing their next brand, 60% identified product quality as important, 54% vehicle performance and 52% price. Those are overlapping responses.

People still care about the car. Quality, performance and features matter. But how much extra is a familiar badge worth when somebody else, including a Chinese newcomer, offers a convincing combination of those qualities at a convincing price?

Was loyalty really stronger in the past?

I have just said things felt different back in the day. The historical figures deserve a look before nostalgia gets carried away.

Contemporary reporting of Polk’s registration research put American same-brand loyalty at roughly 43% in the 2000 model year, with figures above 44% in each of the previous four years. Even in the late Nineties, a substantial proportion of buyers were moving around.

Meanwhile, reporting of J.D. Power’s 2026 American study puts average loyalty at 50.2%, up from 49% the previous year. A Brookings paper published in 1991 was already analysing losses of loyalty to American manufacturers during the Eighties as Japanese companies won customers.

There is evidence of more recent weakening in another American series. An analysis published by S&P Global Mobilityreports brand defection among returning households at 45.4% in 2019, increasing by 4.7 percentage points in 2025. That puts the later figure at approximately 50.1%. Its household measure includes additional vehicles as well as replacements.

Different research, different coverage and different methods mean we cannot draw a neat line through those figures and declare a forty-year trend. The evidence complicates any sweeping claim that loyalty has simply collapsed.

What interests me is whether the emotional relationship is changing, even when the next purchase wears the same badge. You might buy another BMW because you adore BMWs, or because the dealer has made the finance work. Both purchases look the same in a loyalty table, despite the different reasons behind them.

Volvo safety and the changing prestige hierarchy

When I look at some legacy brands today, I struggle to recognise their old promises and personalities quite as clearly.

Take Volvo. Safety was embedded in its identity. You could practically picture the sensible shoes and Labrador of the person buying one. Those old tanks looked substantial, as though their designer’s main concern had been the structural integrity of the whole of Scandinavia.

Modern Volvos are technically safe cars. The EX90 earned five stars in Euro NCAP testing. But five stars are now shared by many cars: in one Euro NCAP release in November 2025, 18 of the 23 vehicles assessed achieved that rating. Programme director Dr Aled Williams observed that there were “more safe cars than ever before”.

That creates a challenge for how distinctive safety feels to a buyer. The figures concern one test batch, and identical star ratings do not mean identical safety performance. Nevertheless, the broad reassurance once closely associated with Volvo is available across a wider selection.

Visually, a modern Volvo also lacks that unmistakably overbuilt presence to my eye. That is an impression, but perception is part of the relationship. How a car looks and feels helps form the promise you think you are buying.

Mercedes is another example. I associate the older cars with magnificent moving fortresses: upright, substantial and reassuring. There was something wonderfully deliberate about them. Today, many look like soap bars on wheels to me, and I occasionally have to look twice to establish whether I am looking at a Mercedes or a Hyundai.

Design is subjective, and Hyundai may consider that comparison a compliment. But if I have to search for the badge to identify a Mercedes, where has all that valuable brand recognition gone?

Hyundai and Kia have moved forward enormously. When a brand we regarded as a budget alternative looks more interesting than an established prestige manufacturer, the conversation changes. The familiar hierarchy becomes harder to take for granted when somebody mistakes your Hyundai for a Mercedes, your Kia for a BMW or your Jaecoo for a Range Rover.

Toyota trust and the weight of expectations

Sometimes the issue is the reassurance a brand gives you, or used to give you. Some long-time Toyota owners have told me they feel the quality is not quite what they remember. Those conversations are anecdotal, and individual experiences vary.

There is evidence of continuing strength: in J.D. Power’s 2026 American Vehicle Dependability Study, Toyota Motor Corporation collected eight model awards and Lexus led the premium brands. That assesses three-year-old vehicles, so it cannot establish that Toyota quality has remained unchanged over decades.

Still, those conversations persist, illustrating how personal trust gets chipped away. If somebody has bought Toyotas for years expecting dependable, fuss-free ownership, a disappointing experience carries the weight of those expectations. A good reputation raises the bar a brand has to keep clearing.

Honda: where did the excitement go?

Honda is more personal to me. Think about the company in the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties: the cleverness, the curiosity and the confidence to do things differently. The CVCC engine, four-wheel steering on the Prelude in 1987, VTEC arriving in 1989 and the NSX in 1990. Amazing times from an incredible manufacturer.

It was a company you watched because you wanted to see what it would come up with next. There was ingenuity in the engineering and excitement in the execution, often in cars ordinary enthusiasts could aspire to own.

I find less of that feeling in its mainstream range today. There have been impressive individual cars, certainly the Civic Type R, whose European sales farewell Honda announced with the Ultimate Edition, ahead of sales ending in 2026. But the company no longer feels like the Honda I remember constantly surprising and delighting me, with a frisson of fun running through its products.

In a 2023 interview published by Honda, president Toshihiro Mibe said he wanted customers to say, “I am glad Honda exists!” or “Honda did it again!”

We used to say that. I am less sure we say it now.

As a long-time Honda fan and buyer, I can love the cars it used to make and still struggle to find one I want in its UK showroom today.

Ford’s iconic cars and the customers left behind

With Ford, the problem becomes practical. The Fiesta was Britain’s best-selling car for years. It has been retired, while the Puma has taken on the role of a familiar mainstream favourite. Ford’s own website directs Fiesta owners towards its current range.

But suppose you loved your Fiesta. It fitted your parking space, your budget and your life. You enjoyed the way it drove and had owned several. Now you want another small hatchback, return to the showroom and find yourself being directed towards a crossover or SUV, perhaps the Explorer or, God forbid, the new Capri.

Looking outside the brand becomes entirely reasonable. Your loyalty was built around a product the company has decided to stop offering.

In 2024, Jim Farley told CAR magazine, in comments reported contemporaneously by Motor1: “We’re getting out of the boring-car business and into the iconic-vehicle business.”

I have huge admiration for the ambition, and who doesn’t love a Ford Mustang? I would love one. But it is hardly the answer for everyone. Surely a manufacturer should consider the loyal customers it risks leaving behind along the way to that iconic status?

Who thought a Fiesta ST, Focus RS or Sierra Cosworth was boring? Those everyday cars became icons in their own right. Their regular relatives carried families, got people to work and became part of their lives. Calling that territory boring seems a curious starting point for maintaining an emotional relationship with those owners.

A manufacturer can decide a product no longer makes financial sense. Customers can decide the remaining products no longer make sense for them. Both decisions have consequences.

Chinese car brands and the value of a familiar badge

What does owning a BYD, Geely or Jaecoo say about you to the average British person today? The associations are still forming. Many people will notice you have bought a Chinese car before recognising the particular brand or understanding what distinguishes it from the others.

Familiarity takes time. Japanese companies had to build reputations with customers who initially knew relatively little about them, and now we talk lovingly about JDM products.

The newcomers have an opportunity because British buyers may bring fewer fixed expectations to their brands. If somebody likes the car and equipment, can afford the payments and feels reassured about ownership, that can get them through the door and signing on the dotted line. The badge can become a smaller part of the decision.

Established manufacturers therefore have an uncomfortable question to answer: how much more should somebody pay for your badge if the qualities behind it feel less distinctive than they used to?

People have mortgages, rent, groceries and energy bills to worry about. A few decades of heritage may be lovely, but are they worth a few hundred pounds extra on the monthly payment?

Getting that first purchase is one thing; keeping the owner is another. New brands will be judged on how their cars hold up, whether the software behaves, what happens when a part is needed and how the dealer responds to problems. Those experiences will give the badge meaning over time.

Loyalty is a promise that keeps being fulfilled

Some established names continue to keep their followers. J.D. Power’s 2026 American results put Toyota at 64.8% among mass-market car owners, Porsche at 61.3% among premium car owners and Ford at 66.2% among truck owners. Those are different categories, rather than a direct whole-brand ranking.

Ford’s relationship with American truck buyers is very different from the experience of a British Fiesta owner. A brand can hold a strong position in one part of the market while leaving customers stranded in another.

For me, loyalty was always about a promise. You buy a car because you expect something from it and its brand, including how it makes you feel and how you think others perceive you. If it delivers and the company treats you well, you have a reason to return. If it keeps delivering, that becomes affection and loyalty. You pass it down to your children and keep buying the same brand.

The company has responsibilities in that relationship. Keep making something relevant to that customer. Make it distinctive enough that people recognise why they were drawn to it. Make ownership feel worth the money, and when something goes wrong, give the customer a reason to trust you again.

Plenty of enthusiasts know the feeling of loving a company’s old cars while its current showroom leaves them cold. A badge can unlock wonderful memories without producing much temptation today.

I am unsure how much of that loyalty will survive the transition and upheaval across the industry. To me, some established identities feel diluted, while the new competition is fiercely attractive in its features and finance. Nor am I convinced the newcomers will automatically inspire lasting loyalty. Will a Jaecoo 7 buyer simply buy its replacement, particularly if the next one no longer resembles a Range Rover? Or will they look for something equally practical with lower repayments?

Can heritage bring customers home?

Something at the Paris Motor Show recently gave me hope. Several manufacturers leaned into nostalgia, reminding us why we fell in love with their brands, then updated those ideas with electric power and modern technology.

The design philosophy and personality of those concepts made me stop and think: that is interesting, and it reminds me of happier times with that brand. Their attractiveness could also invite a new generation of fans. The problem, as I said in my Paris discussion, is that so much of the excitement was attached to concepts rather than cars you could actually buy.

The question I would put to legacy manufacturers is this: when somebody who has bought your cars for years, decades even, walks into the showroom, what have you got that makes them want to stay?

Even if they do not buy the particular car that excites them, what makes them feel good about belonging to your brand? What feels familiar? What gives them reassurance that they have come home? What confirms that long-established brand bias?

Stop simply chasing the upstarts. They are doing what they do very well and will build their own legacies. You already have history and heritage. Distil what your traditional buyers wanted, infuse it back into the cars, then price them to be accessible and watch your old friends return to the forecourts.

Have you stayed with one brand? What earned that loyalty, or what caused a manufacturer to lose you? Tell me what you used to drive, what changed and what you bought next in the comments.

---

Support independent content creation 🙏🏽☺️

If you found this useful, interesting or entertaining, please watch and share the video, take up BrownCarGuy channel membership, buy me a coffee on Ko-Fi, join me on Patreon, or check out my books, including Silent Ruin, How to Be an Automotive Content Creator, Quantum Races and The ULEZ Files. Every bit helps me continue producing independent motoring content.

👉🏽 Channel membership: https://www.youtube.com/browncarguy/join
👉🏽 Buy me a Coffee! https://ko-fi.com/browncarguy
👉🏽 Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/BrownCarGuy

MY BOOKS ON AMAZON!
https://browncarguy.com/2026/04/15/browncarguy-books/
📖 Silent Ruin – A Jamshed Khan Thriller. This international espionage novel is an action-packed page-turner!
📖 Want to become an automotive journalist, content creator, or car influencer? Check out my book: How to be an Automotive Content Creator
📖 Quantum Races – A collection of my best automotive sci-fi short stories!
📖 The ULEZ Files – Debut novel – all-action thriller!