Car brands can inspire incredible enthusiasm in people to the point where they're willing to display their loyalty right on their skin. Just check out the car brands people tattoo most to see what we mean. Of course, automakers prefer that folks exercise their brand loyalty in a more direct way like continuing to purchase vehicles from the same marque over and over again.
As to which brands do the best job at retaining customers, there are multiple contenders for the crown — and multiple crowns for the taking. As a result, it's not just the likely suspects such as Toyota or Subaru that can lay claim to having the most loyal customers. Brands ranging from Ford to Mercedes-Benz to even Tesla can all make their cases for customer loyalty.
It all depends on the data you use. For example, Toyota was indeed the mass-market loyalty leader in the 2024 J.D. Power Automotive Brand Loyalty Study (the most recent edition as of this writing). As for Subaru, it was No. 2 for SUV customer retention in the mainstream category after finishing first in the previous Power rankings. But J.D. Power isn't the only game in town for automotive loyalty, so let's look at some other winners, too.
S&P Global — formerly known as Standard & Poor's and still the team behind the S&P500 and the Dow Jones stock index — certainly knows something about business. And according to their research, the brands with the most loyal customers for the period from April 2024 to March 2025 were Ford, Chevrolet, and Honda, with customer-retention rates of 58.5 percent, 58.3 percent, and 55.5 percent, respectively.
The numbers for luxury brands come with a bit of a disclaimer. According to S&P Global, it's Tesla that led the way by posting a customer-retention rate of 61.6 percent over the same period, with Mercedes-Benz (54.2 percent) and BMW (51.4 percent) filling out the podium — which isn't the issue. The issue is what's been happening after that, including the fact that Tesla sales keep falling and almost every used Tesla is tanking in value. With that in mind, Tesla's unlikely to remain king of the customer loyalty hill for 2025.
S&P Global also analyzed customer loyalty for the 2024 calendar year as part of its 29th Annual Automotive Loyalty Awards, which presented the data in a slightly different way. Highlights from this study show GM as the top manufacturer, Tesla as the No. 1 make — and the highest-ranking brand for ethnic loyalty — and Subaru with the highest loyalty rate to individual dealerships.
S&P Global went ahead and got more granular with the data as well, calling out top individual rides for their ability to get customers coming back for more. Here, the Ford Motor Company dominated with five of the 12 vehicles listed: Ford Expedition (full-size utility), Ford F-Series (light duty pickup), Ford F-Series (250/350 pickups), Lincoln Corsair (luxury small utility), and Lincoln Nautilus (luxury midsize utility). In addition, four of those vehicles, all but the HD F-Series trucks, won their categories in the 2023 awards.
No other automaker — or brand for that matter — had more than one vehicle on the winner's list. Subaru and Toyota? Their combined total of S&P Global loyalty awards for 2024 was zero.
The other leading choices for customer loyalty were the Chevrolet Equinox, Jeep Grand Cherokee, Honda Odyssey, Land Rover Range Rover, Lexus ES, Porsche 911, and one perhaps unexpected name. The Nissan Sentra topped the whole Passenger Car category, providing a glimmer of light to a brand whose future might be looking even dimmer without it.
