The Ford brand had the highest brand loyalty with 61.3 per cent of its customers replacing their current Ford vehicles with new Ford models, JD Power said. The industry average was 46 per cent.

Rounding out the top five were Toyota Motor Corp of Japan's Lexus and Toyota brands at 56.9 per cent and 55.1 per cent, respectively; German-American Daimler Chrysler AG's Mercedes-Benz at 54.4 per cent; and General Motors' Chevrolet at 52.2 per cent, JD Power said.

The study was based on responses from over 42,000 new vehicle buyers.About 46 per cent of all buyers who replace a vehicle are brand loyal, the highest level since JD Power started tracking it in the mid-1980s. Buyers of light trucks such as pickups, sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and minivans (58 per cent) are more loyal than car buyers (46 per cent), JD Power said.

Full-size pickup truck buyers are the industry's most loyal buying segment with an unchanged rating of 74 per cent, but luxury car owner loyalty rebounded 10 percentage points to 60 per cent, JD Power said.

The truck performance reflects older, more male buyers, who tend to be more loyal, said JD Power's director of North American forecasting, Thad Malesh.

In the SUV segment, loyalty rates rose two points to 20 per cent among mini-SUV buyers, rose 6 points to 59 per cent among compact SUV buyers and fell 5 points to 54 per cent among full-size SUV buyers, JD Power said.