When it comes to buying a car, there are some customers who prefer to stick with one brand and one brand only. Others tend to cross shop around. However, a recent study has just uncovered which of the major automakers have the most customer loyalty these days. Topping off at the list at number was Ford, followed by Mercedes-Benz and Toyota. Through March of this year, Ford had a 64 percent loyalty rating. Mercedes and Toyota tied at 57.8 percent.

The study was done by HIS Automotive and it analyzed more than 1.8 million new vehicle transactions in which a household returned to the car market during the first quarter of 2014. Other brands that trailed the top three include Nissan, Chevrolet, Subaru, Honda, BMW, Lexus, and Hyundai. What's interesting is that Lincoln, Jeep, Mitsubishi, Fiat and Smart all posted the biggest gains of customer loyalty during this period. Jeep, for example, saw an eight percent loyalty rate jump. A Jeep executive believes that partly has to do with Liberty buyers sticking with the brand because of better fuel economy across the lineup. Surveys such as this come out regularly, but what's clear is that there are many brand-specific people out there.