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Improvements in quality at Ford companies were the highlight of this year's annual Initial Quality Survey (IQS) report released by the US analyst company J D Power & Associates.

Ford group cars appeared as top in five of the model segments, with a further nine vehicles in the top three of the different segments, Power said.

The IQS measures quality of new vehicles through faults reported during their first 90 days of ownership. Over the past 20 years, the figures have improved consistently, and problem counts have on average halved every seven or eight years.

The survey measures car quality using an index of problems per 100 cars, known as the PP100 figure. In this year's survey, the average is 125 PP100, representing one-and-a-quarter faults as average per vehicle.

For the second year in succession, Porsche tops the overall ranking with 91 PP100. Ford's luxury brand Lincoln has made the greatest progress, from 12th in 2006 to third this year. Jaguar, Mercury and Ford-badged cars also come in under the average.

Land Rover has the worst quality record, at 170 PP100, but ironically it has the best improvement record, having advanced by 34 PP100 over the year. Saab and Mercedes-Benz also showed big improvements. Power notes that the difference between the top performers and the worst is much narrower than ever before.

J D Power also makes assembly plant awards, and there is further irony for Ford group companies in that the first North American winner of the "Platinum Award" since 1999 is the Wixom assembly plant in Michigan, which Ford closed at the end of May. Europe's top-performing plant according to the IQS is BMW's Regensburg facility in Germany.