General Motors is now considered the worst big automaker to deal with, according to a survey of the top suppliers to the car industry in the United States.
The annual survey is conducted by the automotive consultant group Planning Perspectives Inc, according to Reuters.
The survey asks the biggest suppliers in the world to rate their relationships with the six automakers that account for over 85 percent of all light vehicle sales in the U.S.
GM is now their least favorite big customer, according to rankings, making it less popular than Chrysler, which had earned the distinction every year since 2008, according to Reuters.
Suppliers gave GM poor marks on all kinds of key measures including its protection of intellectual property, communication skills, and overall trustworthiness.
GM was also the automaker "least likely to allow them to raise prices to recoup unexpected material cost increases," according to Reuters.
"As a result, GM is now the least preferred customer of suppliers," PPI said in a statement.
Nissan finished third in the survey, beating Ford in PPI's Supplier Working Relations Index. Ford finished fourth, behind Toyota, Honda, and Nissan, respectively.
PPI has been conducting the survey the last 14 years. The consultant group said supplier perceptions of automakers are important because they can decide who sees the supplier's latest technologies first, receive the best pricing, and work with the best engineers.
"(The industry) could be entering an era in supplier relations that doesn't bode well for the U.S. Big Three," said John Henke, the head of PPI and a research fellow at Center for Supply Chain Management at Rutgers University, according to Reuters.
Approximately 55 percent of the suppliers surveyed described their relations with GM as "poor to very poor," up from 48 percent last year.
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