Infotainment glitches remain the single biggest reliability complaint in new cars

Infotainment systems generated 56.7 problems per 100 vehicles in J.D. Power’s 2026 U.S. Vehicle Dependability Study, more than any other category and more than double the runner-up, exterior issues, at 27.5. J.D. Power published the findings Feb. 12, 2026, based on owners who had lived with a 2023 model-year vehicle for three years.

“Software updates and new technologies should enhance the ownership experience over time, yet many vehicle owners cite ongoing mobile phone integration problems and little to no benefit after an update is performed,” said Jason Norton, J.D. Power’s director of auto benchmarking.

Android Auto and Apple CarPlay Top the Problem List

Inside that 56.7 figure, a handful of specific complaints stand out. J.D. Power’s data lists Android Auto and Apple CarPlay connectivity failures as the single most-reported problem industry-wide, at 8.9 problems per 100 vehicles, followed by built-in Bluetooth systems at 5.5, wireless charging pads at 5.1 and OEM app connectivity at 4.7. Every one of those is a feature that did not exist on most vehicles a decade ago, now generating more owner complaints than any mechanical system J.D. Power tracks.

Exterior problems, the second-largest category, cover paint, trim, wind noise and body panel fit, the traditional wear-and-tear issues dependability studies have measured for decades. That infotainment now outpaces exterior complaints by more than double marks a shift in what actually goes wrong with a three-year-old vehicle, from parts that degrade with use to software that simply does not work the way it is supposed to. J.D. Power’s Vehicle Dependability Study spreads its count across nine problem categories in all, and infotainment has now led that list for several years running.

Software Updates Are Making Things Worse, Not Better

The study’s over-the-air update data undercuts the industry’s own pitch that software updates fix problems after the fact. Forty percent of owners surveyed said they received a software update in the past year, but only 27% noticed any improvement afterward, and 58% said they saw no difference at all.

Worse, updates delivered wirelessly appear to be actively adding problems rather than only failing to fix them. J.D. Power’s release states that more than half of all software updates, 63%, were performed over the air rather than at a dealership, and that vehicles receiving those updates saw their problem counts climb nearly 14%, or about 2.5 points on the PP100 scale, in the year covered by the study. A repair meant to happen invisibly, without a service appointment, is instead showing up as a measurable increase in owner-reported trouble.

The Powertrains Struggling Most With Tech

The pattern gets sharper once vehicles are split by powertrain. Gas-only vehicles posted 198 problems per 100, close to the old-fashioned mechanical baseline dependability studies were built to measure. Hybrids came in at 213, battery-electric vehicles at 237, and plug-in hybrids worst of all at 281, a gap that tracks almost exactly with how much additional software, battery management and charging-related electronics each powertrain type carries. Coverage of the full results frames the same trend industry-wide: the more technology a vehicle carries, the more likely an owner is to report something going wrong with it three years later.

That correlation does not prove software alone drives the gap between a 198 PP100 gas vehicle and a 281 PP100 plug-in hybrid; battery and charging hardware carry their own failure modes distinct from touchscreens and phone pairing. But the two categories move together closely enough that J.D. Power’s own top-line finding, infotainment as the single largest source of complaints, reads as a preview of where dependability problems concentrate as more of the fleet electrifies.

A Pattern That Shows Up in Brand-New Cars, Too

The dependability study is not the only J.D. Power measure pointing at infotainment. Its companion 2026 Initial Quality Study, which tracks problems in a vehicle’s first 90 days rather than after three years of ownership, found infotainment was the only major category where problems increased year over year when it published June 25, 2026: 44.4 problems per 100 mass-market vehicles and 38.3 per 100 premium vehicles, driven again by Android Auto and Apple CarPlay connectivity trouble.

“When technology becomes too complicated, the likelihood of customers experiencing a problem rises considerably,” said Frank Hanley, J.D. Power’s senior director of auto benchmarking, in that separate study. The initial-quality data also tied the complaint to more than annoyance: infotainment and touchscreen displays were cited by 46% of owners who separately reported a distracted-driving problem, linking a dependability statistic to a safety one.

J.D. Power has not said whether next year’s study will treat a buggy over-the-air update differently from a mechanical failure in its scoring, leaving open whether an update that fixes one issue while introducing another will keep counting against a brand exactly the way a broken part does.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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