This years reliability report (What car and WarrantyDirect)

[bosshog]

I saw this on the beeb:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18973775

Full results here: http://www.reliabilityindex.com/manufacturer

No surprise on the Jap cars, but shockingly low for the German marks. WOold make me think twice.

[Leicesterdave]

Cannot believe how poor the germans are. Why on earth??

[300bhp/ton]

Leicesterdave said:

Cannot believe how poor the germans are. Why on earth??

Because it's an over contrived formula that over complexes things and due to the nature of cars will never fairly represent exactly what's happening.

I haven't checked, but I suspect any brand that has more expensive parts & labour will likely score lower, even if the number of failures are the same. This website then tried to pass them off as less reliable, when it isn't necessarily the case.

Personally I think it's a total waste of time, effort and resources. Just by the cars you want not what some statistician has proclaimed the best.

[T16OLE]

Surprised to see jag and porsche down there

[xRIEx]

German makes often used for company cars so users aren't as mechanically sympathetic as they would be if they owned/financed/leased it themselves?

[xRIEx]

300bhp/ton said:

I haven't checked, but I suspect any brand that has more expensive parts & labour will likely score lower, even if the number of failures are the same. This website then tried to pass them off as less reliable, when it isn't necessarily the case.

Yes, they confirm this in the second paragraph under Results:
"Toyota, for example, has a high average cost of repair but quite a good index rating - which means that the car fails infrequently but when it does you will be in for a larger than average bill. Overall however, Toyota is a very strong make of car to buy."


I was surprised to see MB and BMW so low, but if the figures cover all models, high-end AMG and M cars will have high repair bills. Porsche too.

ETA: All it's really saying is expensive cars are expensive to run, so yeah, the index itself isn't a whole lot of use.

Edited by xRIEx on Thursday 26th July 08:23

[off_again]

300bhp/ton said:

Because it's an over contrived formula that over complexes things and due to the nature of cars will

Yup - he's right you know....

And having checked the "top 100 cars" - who the hell gets a warranty on a Rover CityRover? They are worth 2p, have the dubious record of being one of the worst cars on the road yet score on the top 100 cars at number 32! A Tata made in India, shipped to here and the badges removed and Rover ones stuck on instead - and its the 32nd best car for reliability?

Errr, I think not.

[BorkFactor]

Slightly stupid question alert:

Why do Skods and Seat get fairly good ratings, but Audi and VW get fairly poor ones? I would have bought they would have been pretty much the same due to platform sharing etc.

Does this include labour charges too, where I would imagine Skoda rates would be cheaper than Audi rates?

Not sure about this one.

[sjg]

It's not a "reliability index", just some stats on how likely you are to claim, and how costly that claim is likely to be, based on one third-party warranty company's data. The likelihood of someone taking out a warranty will skew this just as much - how many of the Hondas do you think will be a Jazz owned by an old couple who do 1000 miles a year but took out a warranty for "peace of mind"? How many of the premium German ones are owned by people who thought a big costly repair might be coming up, so took out a warranty so mitigate the risk?

[900T-R]

O/T 'BorkFactor' sounds quite appropriate as a name for an aggregate score in a reliability report: "While Skodas tend to have a low BorkFactor due to their reliability and low repair costs, Land Rovers seem to be almost permanently borked, resulting in a BorkFactor of 89% - the highest in the survey."

[300bhp/ton]

BorkFactor said:

Slightly stupid question alert:

Why do Skods and Seat get fairly good ratings, but Audi and VW get fairly poor ones? I would have bought they would have been pretty much the same due to platform sharing etc.

Does this include labour charges too, where I would imagine Skoda rates would be cheaper than Audi rates?

Not sure about this one.

~I suspect it's a cost element. I haven't checked, but it really wouldn't surprise me if buying the same universal part from a Skoda dealer costs less than the exact same part but bought from an Audi dealer.

Also remember VW and especially Audi sell lot more expensive models, RS6, R8 and so on. Maintenance on these will generally be higher, more loaded, more things to go wrong, more power so more stress on components.

[Dr G]

What I wanted to say is already said

Contrived and skewed results to sell expensive warranties.

[LuS1fer]

bosshog said:

shockingly low for the German marks.

No, they changed to the Euro with everyone else.

Reliability to some degree is going to be dependent on the number of cars on the road from the various marques. A million VWs are going to have a higher percentage break down than the 8 City Rovers they sold to some 90 year old geriatrics who have them serviced every 3000 miles.

On the other hand, you might mock a City Rover but in a giant continent like India, it damn well has to be reliable and easy to fix.

[Caulkhead]

I'm not entirely sure an aftermarket warranty provider is the best arbiter of reliability. Seems odd that Jaguar are 30th there and 1st here: http://www.whatcar.com/car-news/jaguar-tops-jd-pow...

[philmots]

off_again said:

Yup - he's right you know....

And having checked the "top 100 cars" - who the hell gets a warranty on a Rover CityRover? They are worth 2p, have the dubious record of being one of the worst cars on the road yet score on the top 100 cars at number 32! A Tata made in India, shipped to here and the badges removed and Rover ones stuck on instead - and its the 32nd best car for reliability?

Errr, I think not.

I take your point fully. The car is utterly woeful, but also very very simple... It might just very rarely go wrong, and if/when it does it'll cost peanuts to fix.

Hence it's highish score in this test.

[Bezza1969]

300bhp/ton said:

Because it's an over contrived formula that over complexes things and due to the nature of cars will never fairly represent exactly what's happening.

I haven't checked, but I suspect any brand that has more expensive parts & labour will likely score lower, even if the number of failures are the same. This website then tried to pass them off as less reliable, when it isn't necessarily the case.

Personally I think it's a total waste of time, effort and resources. Just by the cars you want not what some statistician has proclaimed the best.

Don't necessarily agree. Yes it includes the cost of repairs, but also the frequency of failures, hence cars where things dont break often, like hondas, get good scores.

Im not surprised by these scores at all. The German marques have well publicised issues with some of their better selling cars, i.e. BMW with turbo failures and swirl flap breakages on their best selling 2 litre diesel engine, VAG with their injector failures on the 2 litre TDI best seller. You generally dont read of wholesale failures on Jap cars.

[Negative Creep]

300bhp/ton said:

BorkFactor said:

Slightly stupid question alert:

Why do Skods and Seat get fairly good ratings, but Audi and VW get fairly poor ones? I would have bought they would have been pretty much the same due to platform sharing etc.

Does this include labour charges too, where I would imagine Skoda rates would be cheaper than Audi rates?

Not sure about this one.

~I suspect it's a cost element. I haven't checked, but it ereally wouldn't surprise me if buying the same universal part from a Skoda dealer costs less than the exact same part but bought from an Audi dealer.

Also remember VW and especially Audi sell lot more expensive models, RS6, R8 and so on. Maintenance on these will generally be higher, more loaded, more things to go wrong, more power so more stress on components.

Perhaps it's because VW and Audi are seen as "premium" brands and thus customers have higher expectations?

[kambites]

The default view doesn't really claim to be a reliability just; it's a "cost of running" list, which is massively skewed both by dealer rates and by the average age and mileage of the cars in question. It's probably inevitable that more expensive cars will tend to have a higher average age because it's worth keeping them warrantied for longer.

You can get a fairly good idea from it with a bit of thought if you scroll around the views. "Average time off the road" is probably a pretty good indication of what most people consider "reliability". Compare that to average mileage and average age and you can get a reasonable idea of how reliable a brand is. For example Porsches may spend most time in the garage but they're also amongst the oldest, if quite low mileage on average. Hyundai look bloody good, being the oldest and amongst the highest mileage, but near the least time off the road.

The thing that these surveys always remind me, is quite how little difference there actually is between the best and worst manufacturers in terms of reliability.

[the-photographer]

There is a different way to look at it, not necessary better;

Autobild run their cars for +100,000Km and then completely take it apart; even noting corrision on bolts'



Here is the Jag one, click throught the pics for an ideal of what they see;

jag-xf


autobild long term tests

Google translate
http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&...

Current leaderboard.

Platz Fahrzeug Punkte Note
1. BMW 130i 0 1+
Mazda 6 Sport 1.8 MZR 0 1+
3. Mazda 3 1.6 MZR High-Line 1 1
Mazda 5 2.0 MZR-CD Top 1 1
Toyota Prius II HSD Executive 1 1
6. Toyota Prius III Life 2 1
Seat Ibiza 1.4 16V Sport 2 1
VW Golf 1.4 TSI Comfortline 2 1
9. BMW 320i Touring 3 1
Kia Cee’d 1.6 CRDi EX 3 1
Toyota Verso 1.8 Life 3 1
VW Tiguan 2.0 TSI Sport & Style 3 1
13. Fiat Bravo 1.9 MJT Emotion 4 1-

[SWoll]

No disagreeing with 300's comments but will say that we are currently on our 3rd, and very likely last, BMW at present.

Personal experience of their vehicles, all of which were bought <5 years old with < 50,000 miles is piss poor TBH.

2001 330i (bought 2003 at 20,000) - Bad running, Limp home mode and cut out's after re-fueling. Dealer had the car 4 times to rectify the fault. Replaced throttle potentiometer, throttle bodies and eventually the entire engine wiring harness to rectify the fault. All done under warranty.

2004 530D (bought 2006 at 30,000) - Autobox tore itself to peices after a service. Apparently the technician hadn't replaced the oil plug in the box properly. All done under warranty.

2008 525i Touring (bought 2011 at 35,000) - Bad cold running, misfires, limp home mode and cut outs. Dealer had car on 3 seperate occasions and replaced ignition coils and plugs on all 6 cylinders more than once . Fault still returned on cold mornings. Lost faith in dealer and took car to independant who replaced the fuel injectors on 3 cylinders. Been fine since.

Love their cars but find this level of service and reliability very poor. Could understand it if it had happened to 1, but all 3 BMW's we've owned?