New Study Shows Age Plays Role in Preference for Domestic or Import Cars

A recent study shows that the decision between purchasing a domestic or import vehicle might be likely to be determined by the age of the buyer. It was revealed that younger buyers tend to purchase more imports, and older buyers purchase more domestic vehicles. This was according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2007 Avoider Study(SM) that was released on November 29th. It also revealed that the region of the country you live in can make you more likely to purchase either a domestic or import vehicle. This information was provided in a recent press release from J.D. Power and Associates.

This was the fifth year of the study, and it found that younger purchasers were more likely to avoid purchasing a domestic vehicle, whole more mature will be more likely to avoid purchasing an import. It was also discovered that the North Central region of the United States is the area where it it most likely a purchaser will choose a domestic vehicle. 41 percent of consumers in that region do not consider imports when making a vehicle purchase according to the study. The most common reasons for avoiding imports were the appearance of the vehicle and the cost of the vehicle.

In contrast, the Northeast and West regions favor imports over domestic vehicles. The most common reason for avoiding domestic vehicles provided by consumers in these regions include reliability, poor quality, and depreciation of the vehicle's value. These consumers that prefer imports also stated they felt they import fuel economy was better than domestics. Fuel Economy is the most commonly reason given for purchasing a vehicle according to the study.

"Many buyers continue to have unfavorable impressions of domestic models due to concerns about quality, reliability and depreciation issues, even though the quality of many of these domestic products is on par with or exceeds that of their import counterparts," commented Jon Osborn, who is the research director at J.D. Power and Associates. "Domestic manufacturers need to get this message out in front of younger buyers and convince them to put their models on their shopping list.", continued Osborn.