23 October 2002: Toyota and Lexus cars won the top spot in six out of seven car segments in the first customer satisfaction survey of Germany's car owners by market research firm JD Power. Furthermore, the Lexus IS200 (above) received the highest satisfaction score of all participants in the 132-car survey, with 86 per cent.

Overall, Germany's drivers awarded Toyota the top satisfaction rating in the survey at 83.1 per cent. The results of the survey were exclusively published in the current issue of German car magazine 'mot'.

Toyota and Lexus winners in the different segments are: Small car - Toyota Yaris (84.7%); Compact class - Toyota Corolla (82.6%); Medium class - Lexus IS200 (86%) - Top model in the study; Vans - Toyota Picnic (81.7%); Off-roaders - Toyota RAV4 (80.5%); Sports car - Toyota Celica (83.4%)

Earlier this year, Lexus and Toyota took the first and second place respectively in the J D Power and Associates 2002 UK Car Customer Satisfaction Study. The Toyota Yaris was voted the number one car in the City Car/Supermini, while the Toyota Corolla took the top spot in the Small Car segment.

Toyota and Lexus models also achieved the most awards in the 2002 J D Power and Associates' Initial Quality Study, the most accurate report measuring the initial quality of new cars sold in the United States. Toyota and Lexus models led through nine of the sixteen segments.