Not Toyota: This Truck Brand Tops JD Power's Automotive Loyalty Study In 2026

Whether you're in the market for appliances, electronics, or automobiles, JD Power can be an invaluable website to help you gauge fellow buyers' opinions of products before purchasing. JD Power doesn't generally test items out on its own, but it does conduct market surveys and studies to determine important factors like customer satisfaction, overall quality, and, perhaps most importantly, brand loyalty.

Brand loyalty can be a pretty good indicator of both customer satisfaction and the general quality of the products and services. After all, if you would buy something again from a brand, you probably had a good experience with the products you have. If you're leaning on loyalty numbers to help you determine which of the major pickup truck brands you want to purchase from in 2026, you might be surprised that, according to JD Power, Toyota is not the brand shoppers are most devoted to. That honor went instead to Ford Motor Company.

That news isn't entirely shocking, as Ford won the title of having the best-selling truck in the U.S. in 2025. That trend isn't likely to change in the 2026 calendar year. Moreover, Ford trucks earned the top spot in JD Power's Automotive Loyalty Study for four consecutive years prior to the release of the 2026 numbers. The iconic American automaker can now claim its fifth straight title, having earned a 66.2% loyalty rating from customers. As for Toyota, the Japanese automaker placed second on the 2026 list with a loyalty rating of 62.2%. 

Ford Motor Company's 66.2% truck loyalty score was the highest of any major auto brand included in any sector of the study. Given Ford's general dominance in the greater truck marketplace, Toyota may still be feeling pretty good with a second-place finish. The automaker is no doubt feeling great about the results in several other sectors, however, as Toyota took the top spot in not one, but two other automotive categories.

Those categories include both mass-market car brands and mass-market SUVs, where Toyota earned high marks of 64.8% and 63.8%, respectively. On top of those market sector wins, Toyota's luxury brand, Lexus, took the top spot in the premium SUV brand category, beating out BMW with a loyalty score of 59.2% to the latter's 56.4%. As for the runners up in the mass-market car and SUV categories, Honda placed second in both with scores of 64.8% and 63%, respectively. 

The final category in the JD Power study is premium car brands, where the Volkswagen-owned automaker Porsche took the top spot with a loyalty score of 61.3%. BMW took second place, falling well behind Porsche's mark with a loyalty score of 49.3%. This is the eighth consecutive year JD Power has undertaken the automotive loyalty study. According to its website, the results are based on "the percentage of vehicle owners who choose the same brand when trading in or purchasing their next vehicle." The numbers were collected only from sales of new-vehicle franchise dealers between September 2025 and August 2026.