Who made J.D. Powers and Associates the king makers?

No one made J.D. Powers and Associates ”king makers. The provide, among other things, marketing research using consumer surveys to evaluate the quality of automobiles. They only have the “power” that consumers give them but it’s not like their methods and the data they accumulate are simply pulled out of thin air or that what they have to say is merely a matter of uneducated opinion. Automobile buyers can listen to what they say or not. There are other and additional resources. Some companies or organizations that rate and review products are more or less respected, or more or less good at what they do. J.D. Powers is just one of the companies that is pretty good at gathering data from consumers on cars. You don’t have to pay attention if you don’t want to. Whether or not they should have as much influence as they do is debatable but I don’t think anyone “annointed” them.