Buyers Of New Cars Complain Cupholders Are ‘Difficult To Use’

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Every year for the past 39 years, J.D. Power and Associates conduct what they call an Initial Quality Survey (IQS) of buyers of new cars. In it, they try to determine which manufacturers, car models customers, and car features customers are most and least satisfied with over the past year.

This year, Lexus was the highest-ranking brand overall in initial quality among the premium car brands, followed by Jaguar and Genesis. Nissan ranked the highest among the mass market car brands, with Hyundai and Chevrolet coming in second and third.

Interesting information, of course, but perhaps the most interesting note from J.D. Power’s Initial Quality Survey is how customers feel about one of the features that is found in literally every car: cupholders.

“While it seemed like manufacturers had cupholders figured out, given that owners are now bringing more reusable containers into their vehicles, manufacturers are struggling to keep up with being able to accommodate all the different shapes and sizes that are increasingly available,” J.D. Power wrote in a press release announcing their 2025 survey results. “Consequently, owners are again citing more problems in this area, with the expectation that their vehicle should be able to hold different sizes of containers.”

This is no minor complaint either. According to Frank Hanley, J.D. Power’s Senior Director, Auto Benchmarking, who spoke to The Drive via email, “When looking at the top 10 problems for the [industry] ‘cupholders – difficult to use’ went from being the [seventh] most problematic issue for the vehicle to the [third] most reported this year.”

Cupholders are the THIRD biggest problem new car buyers have with their vehicles. Cupholders.

“In the survey we ask owners about 227 specific areas where they can report issues with their vehicles across 10 categories,” Hanley continued. “Owners also have the ability to write in any problems that are not listed. Cupholders this year was the third most reported of those 227 items.

“Everything a customer does mark a problem we ask additional follow up questions that pertain to the issue including having them write in a comment. When reading these comments it was clear that more customers are complaining about the cup holders not being able to hold the larger cup sizes being brought into the vehicles well like Yetis and Stanley mugs. The larger cups are also intruding on access to other areas in the center tunnel like storage spaces and controls in the center stack depending on the positioning of the cup holders.”

As for what new car buyers’ number one complaint was, they are fed up with the ever-increasing size and complexity of the touchscreens that car manufacturer’s keep forcing upon us.

“While customers do find the larger touchscreens visually appealing, their functionality within the vehicle is an increasing source of frustration,” said Hanley. “Customers are having to tap and swipe through multiple screens to access key vehicle functions like climate settings and built-in garage door openers. Owners find these things to be overly complicated and too distracting to use while driving. By retaining dedicated physical controls for some of these interactions, automakers can alleviate pain points and simplify the overall customer experience.”