A slightly second hand car is more reliable than a new one.

[0a]

Yet again the new RRS owning lady has had her pride and joy shout to the world all day with its alarm. The passat CC owning manager has been dealing with the DSG gearbox problem.

Every second hand car I have purchased has been free of faults, the same was the case with my dad who always told me to let the original idiot deal with issues and depreciation.

So, is buying a car at 1 or / years old the way to minimise issues?

[PaulGT3]

Dunno but my 15 year old 160k mile FRENCH car is completely fault free whilst my dad who constantly gets on at me for driving old cars is having to shell out over a grand on a 60k mile 5 year old car for a new diesel pump.

Made me smile

[hedges88]

No just get a Honda lol

To be honest, DSG is a system that involves a lot of complexity so one could see it fail early. If a car has made it to a year old in one peice i guess you could say that any manufacturing defects from new (like in the examples you quoted) would not be as likely

[0a]

I do wonder if the most reliable car you can buy is a 1 year old Golf (Fill in the car here) as opposed to a brand new Golf.

[BFG TERRANO]

In my experience I'd agree with you. 12yr old terrano faultless. Had it for over 4 years with no problems or mot failures.

Wifes 02 206 hdi owned from 6 months old. No faults or break downs. Just services, discs pads, 1 battery and 1 exhaust.

Company Ibiza sport at 18 months old. Had from new. Now on 30k miles.
2nd gear box
Replacement wheel bearing.
Replacement cv joint
Replacement Headlight switch
Boot handle fell off
Boot leaks
Boot lid fills with water then discharges into boot when opened
DPF renewed
Rattle from rear, can't be traced
Passenger footwell gets wet when driven at speed on wet roads.

So yes, I agree with you.

[Engineer1]

Potentially a car that is a year old or so and about a year into the production run. A year old so any snagging faults have been solved and a year into the production run as the overlap on trim and carpets will still be a reasonable size, as the run progresses and cost down kicks in the overlaps shrink and potentially tooling wears.