Car Survival Rate Analysis
Discussion
Keep it stiff said:
I can't see that this is relevant. We all know that How Many Left data for classic cars is flawed, hardly surprising given that much of this goes back pre DVLA, the OP's stats do not cover pre '03. Also, in comparing the data as listed/removed from listing a minority of data that might be missing or incorrectly recorded does not distort the output.
^ that, from personal experience classics and imports (even recent Irish imports) have very poor datasets due to transcription errors when the records are digitised, and the classic datasets are incomplete (and vulnerable to deliberate fraudulent errors).The error rate from a single classic marque can't be extrapolated to the entire database of modern vehicles.
Ignore the sarcy memebro posts, this is good stuff. Won't change the world or the mind of anyone who is convinced that 'marque X is the best/worst', but it's a useful measure nonetheless.
I suspect the only thing that will let down more detailed, granular analysis is the lack of quality source data as has been pointed out.
However, even at this stage it's possible to see clear trends and outliers.
I suspect the only thing that will let down more detailed, granular analysis is the lack of quality source data as has been pointed out.
However, even at this stage it's possible to see clear trends and outliers.
As someone who is looking for a new (to me) runabout, these stats and the way they are broken down are very useful. Car magazine and online reviews are all very well but cars are usually tested when they are only a few months old and longevity never really comes into it. Very hard to find data on how well they last and which manufacturers are consistently building good/bad cars, as I tend to buy cars in the ~5k range I find this type of thing very helpful.
Thanks OP
Thanks OP
Interesting stuff, but what is the sort order - seems a bit random.
Is the spreadsheet available? It would be interesting to look at the data to see reasons for anomalies.
eg you mention the honda accord - has a terrible reputation for clutch/flywheel failure which will generate a big bill. BMW N47 cam chains etc
Is the spreadsheet available? It would be interesting to look at the data to see reasons for anomalies.
eg you mention the honda accord - has a terrible reputation for clutch/flywheel failure which will generate a big bill. BMW N47 cam chains etc
Car_Nut said:
STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF CAR SURVIVAL
I should stress at the outset that this is intended only as a thread for geeks interested in car statistics, and in detailed/lengthy analysis.
....
I look forward to hearing your feedback, and a few good debates (I am a fairly robust character, it is unlikely that you will offend me).
Brilliant, I love this sort of information.I should stress at the outset that this is intended only as a thread for geeks interested in car statistics, and in detailed/lengthy analysis.
....
I look forward to hearing your feedback, and a few good debates (I am a fairly robust character, it is unlikely that you will offend me).
I had been using the howmanyleft stats to see which models were lasting the longest, checking the profile of the curves to see how they disappeared. I'm interesting in getting an old barge next so wanted to use the death rate to get a realist idea of how reliable each model becomes as they age. I prefer real information like yours to reputation and brand influences.
Interesting about the Elise and comparing that with the 360. I would not have thought many Elises would go to mainland Europe due the RHD. But some do make it to Australia and New Zealand. it gets wierd when you consider the 360 as around they are imported in the same volumes as the Elises...
Cold said:
blearyeyedboy said:
Car_Nut said:
- Where have all the Lotus Elises gone?
but the exporting is very true i remember now, post crash for a few years the french in particular were buying up cars.
MX5s don't perform well either. mk2 rust was particularly bad. Maybe there's a greater % of mk1s left?
The Yaris does very well. 'bulletproof' justified.
colin_p said:
A perfect thread, thank you for putting the time and effort in.
Only had time to skim read and honed in the Focus vs MK4 Golf bit being only 0.1% apart. Out of those two it is a difficult call as which will have more on the road in say another five years time.
The MK1 and MK1.5 Focus is generally more simply engineered with less to go wrong in terms of engines and electronics but what is really letting them down is rust and secod to that will be the complicated mutlilink control blade rear suspension. The Focus is more robust and reliable but will rot away.
The MK4 Golf on the other hand is very well rustproofed and has a very simple rear suspension setup. Interestingly the front suspension on both the Golf and Focus is almost the same although the bush configuration on the Focus is more robust. What will let the Golf down and send it to the scrapper is an engine or electonics system failure.
From that alone they are neck and neck in a race to the scrappers, the Focus will rust away while the Golf will expensively go wrong.
However, factor in the greater love for and enthusiast scene then I think there will be more MK4 Golf left than MK1 / 1.5 Focus's in five years time.
As for current cars, I think they will be going to the scrapper much sooner than cars of yesteryear. The sweetspot for longlasting cars that a shed driver stands any chance of being to fix are those produced between the mid 90's and mid 00's. There are very few 90's cars left now so if anyone wants a credible go at shedding then grab an early 00's car before they too are few in numbers.
In the future shedding is going to be a lot more expensive and difficult, and I think rust once again is going to be a major issue. The issue is going to be 'coding' and built in inability of electronic parts to be re-used (coded) to another car. Electric power steering is going to be the biggest send to scrapper issue I'd say. Secondary to that due the expanded ranges of cars and therefore bespoke parts (mainly body panels) are going to be dealer only and therefore very expensive.
Only the most basic of current cars are going to become viable future sheds, could the Duster therefore become a classic?
Sorry if there is some thread shift but shedding is my thing although I never do it properly as I spend too much on my sheds.
Thank you for a very intelligent contribution. It deserves a sneak preview!Only had time to skim read and honed in the Focus vs MK4 Golf bit being only 0.1% apart. Out of those two it is a difficult call as which will have more on the road in say another five years time.
The MK1 and MK1.5 Focus is generally more simply engineered with less to go wrong in terms of engines and electronics but what is really letting them down is rust and secod to that will be the complicated mutlilink control blade rear suspension. The Focus is more robust and reliable but will rot away.
The MK4 Golf on the other hand is very well rustproofed and has a very simple rear suspension setup. Interestingly the front suspension on both the Golf and Focus is almost the same although the bush configuration on the Focus is more robust. What will let the Golf down and send it to the scrapper is an engine or electonics system failure.
From that alone they are neck and neck in a race to the scrappers, the Focus will rust away while the Golf will expensively go wrong.
However, factor in the greater love for and enthusiast scene then I think there will be more MK4 Golf left than MK1 / 1.5 Focus's in five years time.
As for current cars, I think they will be going to the scrapper much sooner than cars of yesteryear. The sweetspot for longlasting cars that a shed driver stands any chance of being to fix are those produced between the mid 90's and mid 00's. There are very few 90's cars left now so if anyone wants a credible go at shedding then grab an early 00's car before they too are few in numbers.
In the future shedding is going to be a lot more expensive and difficult, and I think rust once again is going to be a major issue. The issue is going to be 'coding' and built in inability of electronic parts to be re-used (coded) to another car. Electric power steering is going to be the biggest send to scrapper issue I'd say. Secondary to that due the expanded ranges of cars and therefore bespoke parts (mainly body panels) are going to be dealer only and therefore very expensive.
Only the most basic of current cars are going to become viable future sheds, could the Duster therefore become a classic?
Sorry if there is some thread shift but shedding is my thing although I never do it properly as I spend too much on my sheds.
Edited by Car_Nut on Friday 31st March 15:07
Let me ask a question: Does survival rate inversely correlate with type fleet mileage?
IE, modern car's don't (really) rust away anymore, they get scrapped due to 2 things:
1) Getting crashed
2) Breaking down expensively
Both those factors are greatly influenced by mileage covered.
Something like a Mondeo vs a Jag X type is case in point. The chances are at say 10 years old, the Mondy will have 200k on the clock, the Jag just 80k, as the Mondy has been ploughed up and down the motorway day in, day out by a photocopy salesman, whereas the Jag only gets driven twice a week to the pub by Reginald and his wife (but only if it's sunny, Reg doesn't like to dry his Jag in the wet...)
IE, modern car's don't (really) rust away anymore, they get scrapped due to 2 things:
1) Getting crashed
2) Breaking down expensively
Both those factors are greatly influenced by mileage covered.
Something like a Mondeo vs a Jag X type is case in point. The chances are at say 10 years old, the Mondy will have 200k on the clock, the Jag just 80k, as the Mondy has been ploughed up and down the motorway day in, day out by a photocopy salesman, whereas the Jag only gets driven twice a week to the pub by Reginald and his wife (but only if it's sunny, Reg doesn't like to dry his Jag in the wet...)
Max_Torque said:
Let me ask a question: Does survival rate inversely correlate with type fleet mileage?
IE, modern car's don't (really) rust away anymore, they get scrapped due to 2 things:
1) Getting crashed
2) Breaking down expensively
Both those factors are greatly influenced by mileage covered.
Something like a Mondeo vs a Jag X type is case in point. The chances are at say 10 years old, the Mondy will have 200k on the clock, the Jag just 80k, as the Mondy has been ploughed up and down the motorway day in, day out by a photocopy salesman, whereas the Jag only gets driven twice a week to the pub by Reginald and his wife (but only if it's sunny, Reg doesn't like to dry his Jag in the wet...)
Thanks this is a very valuable point. Undoubtedly, there is a lot of truth in this, although I were being obtuse I could argue with your example and suggest that 80k pootling about in the lanes is worse than 200k motorway miles. IE, modern car's don't (really) rust away anymore, they get scrapped due to 2 things:
1) Getting crashed
2) Breaking down expensively
Both those factors are greatly influenced by mileage covered.
Something like a Mondeo vs a Jag X type is case in point. The chances are at say 10 years old, the Mondy will have 200k on the clock, the Jag just 80k, as the Mondy has been ploughed up and down the motorway day in, day out by a photocopy salesman, whereas the Jag only gets driven twice a week to the pub by Reginald and his wife (but only if it's sunny, Reg doesn't like to dry his Jag in the wet...)
I think that this goes right back to point that I made right at the beginning is that just because Car A has a higher survival rate than Car B, it does not necessarily mean that it is better, which is where the factors that I mentioned earlier come into play. One of which should have been the driver demographic, which unfortunately I forgot: as we go on we will find that although performance variants tend to survive better than average, in the case of fast Saxos they don't - quelle surprise!
Your point is a useful extension of this!
GSalt said:
^ that, from personal experience classics and imports (even recent Irish imports) have very poor datasets due to transcription errors when the records are digitised, and the classic datasets are incomplete (and vulnerable to deliberate fraudulent errors).
This is a very good point, sifting through the data would appear to support this, as there are some obvious quirks between the GB and UK data. While cars can move ownership between the ROI and any part of the UK, logic would dictate the majority of these moves would be between ROI and NI. All the data used in my analysis using the DfT datasets has been of GB data, which (hopefully) would minimise this, second order, distortion. I should claim that this was done with brilliant forethought, but in fact full data for the 2001-13 period exists for GB alone, hence my use of it. Jimmy Recard said:
Thanks for this Car Nut, I've bookmarked the thread. I'll be following it. Not too many contributions from me as I'm no statistician and my 'knowledge' (ahem) is all anecdotal
Thanks Jimmy, nice to have you aboard again - you know the journey that we are about to undertake.It was Jimmy I think that got us onto a discussion of Mondeo v Vectra survival, and it was at point that we started to dip our toes into the mine of DfT data. I posted this on 8 January:
A promised, I have looked up the data for some more Vectra variants. At the same time I decided that I had not done enough analysis of the Passat, either. The extra info is as follows (apologies for what the website does to my tables, but hopefully they are understandable):
Vauxhall Vectra LS 16V 9,332 4,093 376 47.89% 43.86%
Vauxhall Vectra LS DTI 16V 8,235 2,494 432 35.53% 30.29%
Vauxhall Vectra Club 16V 2,975 1,492 111 53.88% 50.15%
Vauxhall Vectra Club DTI 16V 1,858 682 105 42.36% 36.71%
Vauxhall Vectra Elegance 16V 2,413 1,162 112 52.80% 48.16%
Vauxhall Vectra Elegance DTI 16V 3,012 1,125 189 43.63% 37.35%
Vauxhall Vectra SRI 16V 3,327 1,420 202 48.75% 42.68%
Vauxhall Vectra GSI V6 546 271 58 60.26% 49.63%
VW Passat 329 240 12 76.60% 72.95%
VW Passat S TDI 6,583 3,865 253 62.56% 58.71%
VW Passat SE TDI 12,646 8,142 464 68.05% 64.38%
VW Passat Sport 20V Turbo 826 471 46 62.59% 57.02%
This has the effect of slightly boosting the Vectra survival rate to 45.2%. But what it does reveal is that there seems to be specific problem with the survival rate of Vectra diesels: the petrol Vectras and Mondeos seem to have similar survival rates, but there is a massive discrepancy between the diesels.
The additional data for the Passat, knocks its survival rate back to 66.2%.
The down side of including all of this scrap fodder in the data, is that that average survival percentage of the 567,301 cars in the sample has dropped to 69.2%. Although the family car survival rate has increased to 53.1% for the sample that we now have.
At this point I decided to examine the original source data for howmanyleft.com, the Government figures, which can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-set... These are in the form of nice manipulatable Excel tables. It was then possible to aggregate all 303 lines of relevant Vectra variants (I ignored the niche Vauxhall Vectra Astra Elite CDTI and Vauxhall Vectra Zafira Life DualFuel models!), all 209 lines of Mondeo data between the data cut-off date of 2001 and the last full year of Vectra sales in 2008. It was then easy to produce the following graph:
As one can see the gap between the two models is less for the 2003 year than I had predicted on the sample data, however, the gap is always there and the Mondeo survival advantage increases steadily with age. It is therefore clear that Vectras will become extinct on Britain's roads earlier than Mondeos of equivalent age.
A promised, I have looked up the data for some more Vectra variants. At the same time I decided that I had not done enough analysis of the Passat, either. The extra info is as follows (apologies for what the website does to my tables, but hopefully they are understandable):
Vauxhall Vectra LS 16V 9,332 4,093 376 47.89% 43.86%
Vauxhall Vectra LS DTI 16V 8,235 2,494 432 35.53% 30.29%
Vauxhall Vectra Club 16V 2,975 1,492 111 53.88% 50.15%
Vauxhall Vectra Club DTI 16V 1,858 682 105 42.36% 36.71%
Vauxhall Vectra Elegance 16V 2,413 1,162 112 52.80% 48.16%
Vauxhall Vectra Elegance DTI 16V 3,012 1,125 189 43.63% 37.35%
Vauxhall Vectra SRI 16V 3,327 1,420 202 48.75% 42.68%
Vauxhall Vectra GSI V6 546 271 58 60.26% 49.63%
VW Passat 329 240 12 76.60% 72.95%
VW Passat S TDI 6,583 3,865 253 62.56% 58.71%
VW Passat SE TDI 12,646 8,142 464 68.05% 64.38%
VW Passat Sport 20V Turbo 826 471 46 62.59% 57.02%
This has the effect of slightly boosting the Vectra survival rate to 45.2%. But what it does reveal is that there seems to be specific problem with the survival rate of Vectra diesels: the petrol Vectras and Mondeos seem to have similar survival rates, but there is a massive discrepancy between the diesels.
The additional data for the Passat, knocks its survival rate back to 66.2%.
The down side of including all of this scrap fodder in the data, is that that average survival percentage of the 567,301 cars in the sample has dropped to 69.2%. Although the family car survival rate has increased to 53.1% for the sample that we now have.
At this point I decided to examine the original source data for howmanyleft.com, the Government figures, which can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-set... These are in the form of nice manipulatable Excel tables. It was then possible to aggregate all 303 lines of relevant Vectra variants (I ignored the niche Vauxhall Vectra Astra Elite CDTI and Vauxhall Vectra Zafira Life DualFuel models!), all 209 lines of Mondeo data between the data cut-off date of 2001 and the last full year of Vectra sales in 2008. It was then easy to produce the following graph:
As one can see the gap between the two models is less for the 2003 year than I had predicted on the sample data, however, the gap is always there and the Mondeo survival advantage increases steadily with age. It is therefore clear that Vectras will become extinct on Britain's roads earlier than Mondeos of equivalent age.
By the next day we had this (you will see this curve a lot):
Anyway I have also carried out the big sum and have produced the survival curve for all cars on the UK's roads or that are SORNed that were constructed between 2001 and 2015, I will call this the survival rate reference curve:
Considering the amount of data involved, I am surprised that the curve is not smooth - any ideas? My best guess at present is the that 2008-9 financial crush changed the car type mix (as we have already seen there is a disparity in the survival rates between different types of cars).
To return to our reference year of 2003, the big numbers are as follows:
First Registrations: 2,646,056
2003 Built cars surviving: 1,822,891
2003 Built cars still taxed: 126,729
2003 Built cars SORNed: 1,696,162
Surviving: 68.89%
Taxed: 64.10%
SORN: 4.79%
Anyway I have also carried out the big sum and have produced the survival curve for all cars on the UK's roads or that are SORNed that were constructed between 2001 and 2015, I will call this the survival rate reference curve:
Considering the amount of data involved, I am surprised that the curve is not smooth - any ideas? My best guess at present is the that 2008-9 financial crush changed the car type mix (as we have already seen there is a disparity in the survival rates between different types of cars).
To return to our reference year of 2003, the big numbers are as follows:
First Registrations: 2,646,056
2003 Built cars surviving: 1,822,891
2003 Built cars still taxed: 126,729
2003 Built cars SORNed: 1,696,162
Surviving: 68.89%
Taxed: 64.10%
SORN: 4.79%
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