Britain's Most Reliable Cars

New figures show most reliable and unreliable cars, cheapest and most expensive to repair

The growing availability of information afforded by the internet will ultimately make all entities more accountable, whether they're made of flesh and blood, or bricks and mortar and concepts. Corporations will need to change if they are to survive in this coming age of accountability and automotive manufacturers in particular will need to reassess their communication strategies. Despite the financial magnitude of an automobile purchasing decision, the masses have until now been content to read the spec sheet and subscribe to the copywritten dreams rather than assess the real costs of owning the car—reliability, cost of repair, time-off-road and resale value—because those factors have been hidden. Now those figures are becoming publicly available and some of the big names don't fare at all well. Read on to find out how much more it costs to repair a Porsche than any other brand, which British marque is the least reliable, which European brands dominate the cheapest to repair top 10, and why Honda fares best with everything considered. Read on for the top 10 most expensive to repair, top 10 least expensive to repair, top 10 most unreliable brands, and the top 10 most reliable brands. Fascinating stuff!

Firstly, do the figures we're using here have any cred?

The Reliability Index is derived from the figures of the UK's leading independent automotive warranty specialist, Warranty Direct and is based on vehicles older than three years (3-6 year old), because people don't start buying independent warranties until the standard warranty finishes.

Warranty Direct studied the reliability and cost of repair of 250 of the most popular models during the last 12 months. A total of 30 manufacturers from a database of 50,000 policies were analysed.

What we do know from Warranty Direct is that one in three vehicles outside the manufacturer's standard three-year warranty will suffer a mechanical failure this year. Sadly, getting accurate data on new car failure is nigh on impossible, as the manufacturers are unlikely to release it.

There's additional integrity in the data of the Reliability Index in that although the company warranties and hence tracks well in excess of 150,000 vehicles, it does not include makes and models for which it doesn't carry enough policies and claims to provide a fair reflection of that model's place in the UK market as they will skew the overall picture and are hence excluded until a significant sampling is available.

As the Reliability Index site is automatically linked to claims processed by Warranty Direct, the data on the web site is updated daily and the small number of omissions will therefore get smaller as the number of warranties grows.

As a transparent data source for the car buyer, the Index provides invaluable information on the sort of costs you can expect with your car, how frequently it might go wrong and which parts you should expect to go wrong.

It won't come as any surprise that Japanese manufacturers hold sway when it comes to building the most reliable cars.

Business Exchange

Track and share business topics across the Web.