Most reliable cars?

[Roger Irrelevant]

Rissole said:

Thanks for all the feedback, my budget is £13k and happy to consider cars of all ages but would prefer something of more recent times, say last 5 years.

My money would be going on a Subaru Outback - the 3.6 petrol one. My next car is very likely to be the earlier 3.0 but if by the time I get round to changing the 3.6s are in budget that'll be the one.

[Brave Fart]

Well you said a family car - my suggestion is a 2003-5 petrol RAV4 manual. Not the most exciting drive, but won't let you down. Ours is now 11 years old, nothing has ever gone wrong with it.
Regards, Mike.

[CX53]

BGarside said:

Had a '98 Mazda 323F for 4 years which I took from 62k to 93k miles and was totally reliable. I think the late 90s Jap cars were more reliable than the later ones, perhaps because they were also simpler and shared less engineering with other marques.

I currently run a 23 year old BMW E36 as the simplicity and DIY potential appeal to me. Hard to find simple modern cars. Maybe a Dacia Sandero but not much fun to drive.

Fords are not that reliable but cheap to insure and parts are dirt cheap. Petrol Focus or Mondeo 2.0?

Breadvan Civic 2.0 Type S?

1st gen. Lexus IS200?

Skoda Octavia petrol? Any Toyota Corolla. '90s Nissan Primera.

Mercedes 190e. £3-4k for the best.

Find a good one for much less than your budget and keep some cash back for maintainance.

Since when have modern fords been unreliable?

[cptsideways]

CX53 said:

Since when have modern fords been unreliable?

Injectors "failing" at about 80k yet they can be simply reprogrammed & they work again, fuel pumps failing for a pastime, DMF's on every Mondeo I have ever known at all sorts of mileages & always before the clutch is dead. I'm sure your average mechanic has many tales of woe. I would not suggest a 5 year old Mondeo would ever be reliable. As for cheap prices, that's rubbish, when you'll have to replace a whole heap of parts to keep one going.

[Willy Nilly]

the op has £13,000 to spend, why are people suggesting sheds?

[Truckosaurus]

Willy Nilly said:

the op has £13,000 to spend, why are people suggesting sheds?

Indeed. If he had £1,300 then a '90s Corolla would be a good buy, otherwise (as has been suggested already) get £13k worth of new/nearly new KIA and then who cares if it is reliable or not as you'll have 7-yrs of warranty to cover you.

Or spend £100 a month on leasing a string of shopping cars for 11 years.

[Downward]

buzzer said:

I did fair bit of research about this many years ago. One car stood out. The late 90's corolla with the 1.3 or 1.6 engine.

Old now, but these had no inherent faults, and i have seen many over 300k miles!

I bought one about 10 years ago... And stil have it. Even now its still only done 50k miles and is mint! Everything works, its always been serviced on time, and a few years ago i even did a clutch on it as we were going to Italy in it and i didnt know how the first owner had treated it! Took it out and it was of course perfect, but i put a new one in anyway.... Even the air con has been services every few years and works perfectly!

Its been sitting in the garage unused for a couple of years... Not sure what to do with it, in real terms it worth very little...

Hmm not sure on that, mines on 54500 miles, the armrest centre console where it lifts up broke last week, the rear ashtray broke a few years ago. Also the interior door switches are temperamental too.
Other then that I've just changed tyres, brakes, belts. It's still on the original exhaust though and the original HT leads so I'm sure something will fail soon.

[Fastdruid]

cptsideways said:

Injectors "failing" at about 80k yet they can be simply reprogrammed & they work again, fuel pumps failing for a pastime, DMF's on every Mondeo I have ever known at all sorts of mileages & always before the clutch is dead. I'm sure your average mechanic has many tales of woe. I would not suggest a 5 year old Mondeo would ever be reliable. As for cheap prices, that's rubbish, when you'll have to replace a whole heap of parts to keep one going.

Those are pretty much just diesel problems though. So far I've taken mine from 5 years old to 8 years old (just short of 100k) and the only issue (apart from a stone hole through the air-con condenser) has been a broken bracket on the exhaust.

[CX53]

Fastdruid said:

cptsideways said:

Injectors "failing" at about 80k yet they can be simply reprogrammed & they work again, fuel pumps failing for a pastime, DMF's on every Mondeo I have ever known at all sorts of mileages & always before the clutch is dead. I'm sure your average mechanic has many tales of woe. I would not suggest a 5 year old Mondeo would ever be reliable. As for cheap prices, that's rubbish, when you'll have to replace a whole heap of parts to keep one going.

Those are pretty much just diesel problems though. So far I've taken mine from 5 years old to 8 years old (just short of 100k) and the only issue (apart from a stone hole through the air-con condenser) has been a broken bracket on the exhaust.

The diesels have their problems, like all modern diesels. I definitely wouldn't say they were particularly unreliable in comparison with other diesels though.

By and large, the petrols are very reliable.

[BrownBottle]

cptsideways said:

CX53 said:

Since when have modern fords been unreliable?

Injectors "failing" at about 80k yet they can be simply reprogrammed & they work again, fuel pumps failing for a pastime, DMF's on every Mondeo I have ever known at all sorts of mileages & always before the clutch is dead. I'm sure your average mechanic has many tales of woe. I would not suggest a 5 year old Mondeo would ever be reliable. As for cheap prices, that's rubbish, when you'll have to replace a whole heap of parts to keep one going.

Most of the recommended cars in this thread have been petrol, you're talking about a diesel Ford, the jap diesels aren't all that either. Most petrol Fords are very reliable, IME a boggo petrol Mk2 Focus is one of the most reliable cars out there and very cheap to fix if it does happen to need anything.

[BGarside]

CX53 said:

Since when have modern fords been unreliable?

Wasn't impressed with mine. '03 Focus bought at 3y old. CD player failed, tailgate struts, drivers door lock, cam sensor (stranding car), injector fault, poor cold starting, rusty springs, instruments went haywire, etc, etc.

Also known for diesel hassles including injectors, DPF, DMF, fuel pumps.

I sold mine before it developed any more faults...

[Chris1255]

buzzer said:

A good way of assessing the COST of things going wrong is to look at the statistics on the warranty direct site for different cars.



Have a look here. http://www.reliabilityindex.com

Edited by buzzer on Saturday 19th March 11:28

So whatever it's flaws the Warranty Direct survey is at least an attempt to apply logic and consistency to measure reliability rather than just rely on anecdotes. Out of the top 10 most reliable manufacturers 7 are Japanese, so far so in agreement with what's been written here. The other three? Rover, Ford and Chevrolet, I can hear PH heads exploding already.

[Rocco1]

buzzer said:

I did fair bit of research about this many years ago. One car stood out. The late 90's corolla with the 1.3 or 1.6 engine.

Old now, but these had no inherent faults, and i have seen many over 300k miles!

I bought one about 10 years ago... And stil have it. Even now its still only done 50k miles and is mint! Everything works, its always been serviced on time, and a few years ago i even did a clutch on it as we were going to Italy in it and i didnt know how the first owner had treated it! Took it out and it was of course perfect, but i put a new one in anyway.... Even the air con has been services every few years and works perfectly!

Its been sitting in the garage unused for a couple of years... Not sure what to do with it, in real terms it worth very little...

Sent you a PM

[DukeDickson]

BGarside said:

CX53 said:

Since when have modern fords been unreliable?

Wasn't impressed with mine. '03 Focus bought at 3y old. CD player failed, tailgate struts, drivers door lock, cam sensor (stranding car), injector fault, poor cold starting, rusty springs, instruments went haywire, etc, etc.

Also known for diesel hassles including injectors, DPF, DMF, fuel pumps.

I sold mine before it developed any more faults...

Not been perfect, but my Mk2 still seems to be going along OK at 9+ years and 183k & counting. Pig iron 5cyl seems to help, even if bits of silly cost cutting don't.


So many factors affecting this, but in absolute terms, the Nissan Cockroach is certainly a top answer.

[irish boy]

Reliability/cheap to run can be 2 different things. Mum bought a new w124 estate in 1990, dad bought a new volvo 240 estate the same year. Both still have them, neither see a need for change. Both on around 160k, both live outside. The interesting thing is, tho both reliable, dad's has cost substantially less to run, requiring very little outside service items. The merc has required front wings, sills, exhaust, clutch etc etc.

I have a classic 740 volvo that does maybe 1k per year, and requires nothing outside annual servicing. bought with 38k off a chap who owned it from new but gave up driving a number of years before I bought it. Everything works. No rubbers had perished, and it drives as new.






But the car that would take the most abuse and keep coming back for it is the toyota carina e. I did 900 miles in it this week. It feels like it would do that every week till I quit driving. No way would I ever drive something like a c1 lease deal, I genuinely enjoy driving the carina, it's light and responsive in a way a new avensis isn't, and there's a certain kick comes from driving something 'indestructible', and close to the lowest pence per mile running costs available. Not even electric front windows to fail. I'll always keep something 'fun' in the garage, but tend to use it less and less.

[PomBstard]

I'll just stick my oar in for the Japanese approach too. In the past 10 years I've run 8 cars, 7 of which were/are Japs. The 8th was a Volvo V70 and I couldn't wait to get shot of it. The 7 consist of 5 Subarus and 2 Mazdas and all have been happy, reliable experiences. Parts prices aren't too bad over here, and you generally need less of them. The 07 Forester we've had for 9 years has needed just A/C parts other than consumables. It'll need a new clutch soon, but has never let us down and just seems to work. The interior has withstood a 3-child onslaught very well - not sure a soft-touch dash would get away so lightly.

As a bonus, all have been fun to drive too.

[aka_kerrly]

Put simply, the most reliable cars are the best maintained ones.

Even the cars which score highly in reliability tests in their first 3 years will quickly become unreliable of they are neglected!

[GreenArrow]

Chris1255 said:

buzzer said:

A good way of assessing the COST of things going wrong is to look at the statistics on the warranty direct site for different cars.



Have a look here. http://www.reliabilityindex.com

Edited by buzzer on Saturday 19th March 11:28

So whatever it's flaws the Warranty Direct survey is at least an attempt to apply logic and consistency to measure reliability rather than just rely on anecdotes. Out of the top 10 most reliable manufacturers 7 are Japanese, so far so in agreement with what's been written here. The other three? Rover, Ford and Chevrolet, I can hear PH heads exploding already.

Absolutely! Its unfair to single out Ford for what are generic diesel reliability issues. Ford Mondeo DMFs do go, but what about the famous VAG 2 litre TDI PD injector fiasco where they had to issue a recall due to the numerous failures. Anyway, the most unreliable Ford diesel, the 1.6 was a Peugeot/Citroen engine I think....or at least a shared Peugeot engine.

If you look at the research, a simple petrol engine Fiesta or Focus is as reliable as most things, I seem to recall that the 1995-2000 Fiesta was as reliable or more reliable than a Mk2 MX-5, which is going some....

[Digby]

aka_kerrly said:

Put simply, the most reliable cars are the best maintained ones.

Even the cars which score highly in reliability tests in their first 3 years will quickly become unreliable of they are neglected!

I wouldn't always agree with that. In terms of being neglected and abused but sucking it up and carrying on regardless, you still can't go wrong with many Japanese cars.

I would rather be left at the side of the road in an abused and "unreliable" twenty + year old Honda knowing that it just stripped a belt, than spend thousands on something French to keep it going for more than five years so I could declare it reliable.

[lee_erm]

My advice would be to avoid anything German if you want a reliable car. The most reliable none Japanese brand (Subaru and Mitsubishi aside) is Ford.