Reliability - dull, but where can we find out?
Discussion
Nearly every thread mentions car a) or b) being reliable or not, but how can we tell?
I don't mean the heresay stuff, "My friend had a BMW that never broke in a million miles" etc etc, I mean collected statistics with as little (or as appreciable as possible) bias.
The only one I know of, and tend to look at, is data published by Warranty Direct. I'm sure they have bit of a bias, and because they don't publish their scoring formulae we've no way to absolutely verify it against their claims of average cost/frequency of breakdown, but it's the most comprehensive one that I know of.
We usually peg certain manufacturers as being particularly unreliable (i.e. anything French, Land Rovers and Italian cars), but German metal is held in the public mind as completely infallible. Yet, when you look at some data, the least reliable manufacturers are dominated by the Germans (occupying 6 out of the bottom 10 places in 39), yet the Frenchies are 13th, 15th and 23rd (i.e. about average). Is it all just heresay?
Does anyone have more stats to show us? The JDPower survey is open to personal bias since it's the owner that rates the car - buy something unreliable that you love and you'll naturally defend it, get lumped with a Renault instead of the Audi you wanted in the company car lottery and you'll slate it to death.
I don't mean the heresay stuff, "My friend had a BMW that never broke in a million miles" etc etc, I mean collected statistics with as little (or as appreciable as possible) bias.
The only one I know of, and tend to look at, is data published by Warranty Direct. I'm sure they have bit of a bias, and because they don't publish their scoring formulae we've no way to absolutely verify it against their claims of average cost/frequency of breakdown, but it's the most comprehensive one that I know of.
We usually peg certain manufacturers as being particularly unreliable (i.e. anything French, Land Rovers and Italian cars), but German metal is held in the public mind as completely infallible. Yet, when you look at some data, the least reliable manufacturers are dominated by the Germans (occupying 6 out of the bottom 10 places in 39), yet the Frenchies are 13th, 15th and 23rd (i.e. about average). Is it all just heresay?
Does anyone have more stats to show us? The JDPower survey is open to personal bias since it's the owner that rates the car - buy something unreliable that you love and you'll naturally defend it, get lumped with a Renault instead of the Audi you wanted in the company car lottery and you'll slate it to death.
That Warranty Direct survey is probably as good as you'll get, although as you say isn't gospel (note the differing scores for the Aygo/C1/Pug107 and lack of differentiating between models eg. only saloon/soft-top split for the 3-series rather than by engine or build country).
Also, a car might rarely break down but is expensive to fix or has regular problems that are cheap to fix, which is better/worse?
Also, a car might rarely break down but is expensive to fix or has regular problems that are cheap to fix, which is better/worse?
Krikkit said:
Nearly every thread mentions car a) or b) being reliable or not, but how can we tell?
I don't mean the heresay stuff, "My friend had a BMW that never broke in a million miles" etc etc, I mean collected statistics with as little (or as appreciable as possible) bias.
The only one I know of, and tend to look at, is data published by Warranty Direct. I'm sure they have bit of a bias, and because they don't publish their scoring formulae we've no way to absolutely verify it against their claims of average cost/frequency of breakdown, but it's the most comprehensive one that I know of.
We usually peg certain manufacturers as being particularly unreliable (i.e. anything French, Land Rovers and Italian cars), but German metal is held in the public mind as completely infallible. Yet, when you look at some data, the least reliable manufacturers are dominated by the Germans (occupying 6 out of the bottom 10 places in 39), yet the Frenchies are 13th, 15th and 23rd (i.e. about average). Is it all just heresay?
Does anyone have more stats to show us? The JDPower survey is open to personal bias since it's the owner that rates the car - buy something unreliable that you love and you'll naturally defend it, get lumped with a Renault instead of the Audi you wanted in the company car lottery and you'll slate it to death.
The trouble is the stats don't really mean much. You need to know more detail, which is never provided.I don't mean the heresay stuff, "My friend had a BMW that never broke in a million miles" etc etc, I mean collected statistics with as little (or as appreciable as possible) bias.
The only one I know of, and tend to look at, is data published by Warranty Direct. I'm sure they have bit of a bias, and because they don't publish their scoring formulae we've no way to absolutely verify it against their claims of average cost/frequency of breakdown, but it's the most comprehensive one that I know of.
We usually peg certain manufacturers as being particularly unreliable (i.e. anything French, Land Rovers and Italian cars), but German metal is held in the public mind as completely infallible. Yet, when you look at some data, the least reliable manufacturers are dominated by the Germans (occupying 6 out of the bottom 10 places in 39), yet the Frenchies are 13th, 15th and 23rd (i.e. about average). Is it all just heresay?
Does anyone have more stats to show us? The JDPower survey is open to personal bias since it's the owner that rates the car - buy something unreliable that you love and you'll naturally defend it, get lumped with a Renault instead of the Audi you wanted in the company car lottery and you'll slate it to death.
"surveys" tend to ask about more than reliability. They also don't factor in peoples perception of different marques. So you could have the same car sold under two different brands that both suffer the same fault, but owners of 'x' car may be more peeved than owners of 'y' car.
You also need to know the use of the vehicles. Motorway mile munching is less stressful than working in a quarry for instance.
Also a "fault" or "failure" may not be a sign of being unreliable. A warning light for a dodgy sensor for example.
And then there's the ratio thing.
e.g.
If company 'A' has a driveshaft issue in every 100 drive shafts they equip. But their cars are mostly fwd with only 2 drive shafts.
Company 'B' also has one driveshaft issue in every 100, but they mostly sell AWD vehicles with 6 driveshafts.
Which company will then have the most failures?
st4 said:
JD Power survey.
Its good enough to make a guess. Buy a Japanese car for ultimate reliability, or a land rover if you like breaking down
But you see, this is exactly why such surveys are so misleading. Also if you ever care to look at any of the underlying stats, normally last place is only a handful of points behind first. But because an order has been forced it makes some seem much worse than they actually are.Its good enough to make a guess. Buy a Japanese car for ultimate reliability, or a land rover if you like breaking down
Honestjohn.co.uk
Always use this site when researching new cars. As well as reviews there's usually plenty of info regarding issues and recalls for the cars. It tends to be quite specific about which models/engines suffer problems too, which is nice.
Of course it's a bit of a lottery when buying cars new or used, you never know if the one your looking at is a Friday afternoon special or not no matter what the cars reputation may be.
Always use this site when researching new cars. As well as reviews there's usually plenty of info regarding issues and recalls for the cars. It tends to be quite specific about which models/engines suffer problems too, which is nice.
Of course it's a bit of a lottery when buying cars new or used, you never know if the one your looking at is a Friday afternoon special or not no matter what the cars reputation may be.
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