For the fifth consecutive year, Toyota has become the most successful manufacturer in the German J D Power Customer Satisfaction Index Study. The Yaris, Corolla, Corolla Verso and RAV4 were the top-scoring models in four of seven categories, while honours in the remaining three were shared by Mazda (6 and MX-5) and Volvo (V70).

The Mazda6 was the top-scoring car in the survey, with 861 points out of a total possible 1000, and Mazda was also third in the manufacturer's list with 834 points. Toyota leads the manufacturer table on 851 points, while Honda has jumped three positions from last year to take second on 838 points.

Other manufacturers to perform above the industry average are Subaru, Volvo, Mitsubishi, Audi, BMW, Daihatsu, Skoda, Mercedes-Benz, MINI, Opel and Ford.

Subaru and Honda are also the most-improved manufacturers compared with their positions in the 2005 study. The manufacturer which achieved the greatest improvement among European brands was MINI.

Less happily, the industry average score for manufacturers has fallen from 800 points to 795, largely due to dissatisfaction with vehicle appeal and ownership costs. The trend since the German study was established, however, remains positive - back in 2002, the industry average was 767.

The J D Power and Associates/What Car? UK Customer Satisfaction study has been dominated by Lexus in recent years, and the 2006 results show that the Toyota-owned brand is continuing to pull ahead of its rivals.

This year's survey involved the evalutations of 15,000 car buyers after an average two years of ownership. 77 attributes are investigated, divided into four basic groups: quality and reliability of product makes up 30% of the marks, 28% are based on vehicle appeal (including performance, design, comfort and features), 22% on satisfaction with dealer service and the remaining 19% on ownership costs such as fuel consumption, insurance and service/repair costs.

The maximum possible score is 1000. This year, Lexus has blitzed its already outstanding 2005 score, achieving 873 marks. That's 25 more than its nearest rival, and to give some idea of just how impressive that is, here's another statistic for you: in the whole of the list, no other two manufacturers in consecutive positions are anything like 25 marks apart. There is one rare occurrence of a 13-mark gap, but generally the difference is much smaller, and there are several cases of manufacturers achieving the same score.

On top of all that, Lexus actually registered the greatest improvement of any manufacturer over last year's performance. This company is indeed well ahead of the game.

Second on the list is Honda, with 848 - which would have tied with Lexus in 2005. Then comes Skoda (always a strong perfomer in this survey) on 842 and Toyota on 838. BMW and MINI share fifth place, both scoring 820. All are well ahead of the industry average score of 791; the manufacturers closer to this figure are Mercedes-Benz on 795 and Suzuki on 790.

The lowest-scoring manufacturer of all is Citroen, which scored 759 marks. This is obviously a very bad result, but some others were not much better. Land Rover managed just 762, Mitsubishi scored 763, and three manufacturers - Fiat, Peugeot and the now-defunct MG Rover - tied on 764.

Chrysler, Daihatsu, Jeep, Porsche and smart were all included in the survey, but the sample sizes in each case were so small that J D Power decided not to include them in the rankings.

There is also a separate ranking for individual model ranges, and here again there is a long-running battle between Lexus and Honda. The Honda Jazz has topped the list for the last two years, and it's still doing well with 861 marks, but it has been beaten by the Lexus IS range on 868.

Perhaps surprisingly, the next car in the survey is the Suzuki Liana, which gained a phenomenal 48 marks over its 2005 score and is now sitting just behind the Jazz on 856 marks.

Frank Parisi, J D Power's Director of European Automotive Research, notes that "customer satisfaction across the industry has improved by five index points. The main reason for this is a substantial improvement in satisfaction with the performance of the UK's car dealers when the customer takes their car in to be serviced or repaired. This year, 24 of the 30 ranked brands have shown an improvement in this area, which is a very encouraging trend."

Of those 24, the ones that showed the greatest improvement in dealer service satisfaction were Mercedes-Benz, Lexus (again!), Volkswagen and Subaru.