The Hon­da brand has earned its best-ever rank­ing, fin­ish­ing sec­ond among all sur­veyed brands, in­clud­ing pre­mi­um makes. Rid­ing high, Hon­da al­so led the in­dus­try with sev­en mod­els earn­ing the high­est ini­tial qual­i­ty rank­ing in their re­spec­tive seg­ments, in­clud­ing its top-sell­ing Ac­cord and Civic mod­els. In the man­u­fac­tur­ing realm, the 2011 JD Pow­er and As­so­ciates Ini­tial Qual­i­ty Study (IQS) recog­nised three Hon­da plants for su­pe­ri­or qual­i­ty, in­clud­ing Hon­da's newest US au­to plant in Greens­burg, In­di­ana. Hon­da Man­u­fac­tur­ing of In­di­ana-pro­duc­ing the Civic Sedan-was one of on­ly three plants around the world to earn the Plat­inum Plant Qual­i­ty Award. The Suzu­ka, Japan plant, line 1, earned a Sil­ver Plant Qual­i­ty Award, Asia Pa­cif­ic (tie), for pro­duc­tion of Civic and In­sight, while the East Lib­er­ty, Ohio plant took home a Bronze Plant Qual­i­ty Award, North/South Amer­i­ca, for pro­duc­tion of the Ac­cord Cross­tour, CR-V and El­e­ment.

The re­sults in­di­cate Hon­da has im­proved in ini­tial qual­i­ty for 2011. Hon­da has re­ceived sev­en qual­i­ty awards-the high­est num­ber the brand has earned in the IQS in any giv­en year. The study in­di­cat­ed Hon­da has his­tor­i­cal­ly per­formed well, plac­ing it among the top ten in the IQS in each of the past six years. For 2011, the study found there has been im­prove­ment since three non-pre­mi­um brands have each im­proved its rank­ing among the top ten this year-Maz­da, Toy­ota and GMC. Two brands achieved its high­est-ever rank­ing in the IQS-Hon­da-sec­ond-and Maz­da-fifth. Last year's all-new Hon­da Ac­cord Cross­tour and the Hon­da Ac­cord re­ceived awards for a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year. Hon­da Mo­tor Co, and Toy­ota Mo­tor Cor­po­ra­tion each re­ceive three IQS plant awards, while Daim­ler AG re­ceives two and Porsche AG re­ceives one.

Cat­e­go­ry re­sults:

Here are the top three ve­hi­cles in each non-pre­mi­um cat­e­go­ry in which a Hon­da prod­uct was fea­tured:

Sub­com­pact

1 Hon­da Fit

2 Kia Rio

3 Hyundai Ac­cent

Com­pact car

1 Hon­da Civic (tie)

1 Hon­da In­sight (tie)

2 Toy­ota Prius

Com­pact crossover/SUV

1 Hon­da El­e­ment

2 Hon­da CR-V

3 Toy­ota FJ Cruis­er

Mid­size car

1 Hon­da Ac­cord

2 Sub­aru Lega­cy Sedan

3 Toy­ota Cam­ry

Mid­size crossover/SUV

1 Hon­da Ac­cord Cross­tour

2 Dodge Du­ran­go

3 Sub­aru Out­back Wag­on

Mid­size pick­up

1 Hon­da Ridge­line

2 Nis­san Fron­tier

3 Ram Dako­ta

Mid­size van

1 Chrysler Town & Coun­try

2 Hon­da Odyssey

3 Dodge Grand Car­a­van