What Car Reporting A Disappointing Drop In New Car Reliability!
Thursday, 20. September 2018
These days most of us are of the opinion that new cars, whatever their make, are all pretty reliable. After all, it’s in the manufacturer and dealer’s interest to make sure that you don’t suffer breakdowns in the first 30 days and end up handing the car back for a full refund.
This resulting in the dealer suffering the massive depreciation that happens the moment the tyres hit the road when the car turns from being new to second hand. Beyond the first 30 days with strong warranties and consumer rights one would think that the manufacturers have been doing everything to ensure that the vehicles are fault free. But What Car has found this not to be the case.
Which is disappointing for those buying new cars as opposed to used because often the decision to buy a new car is based on the perceived greater reliability of a new car over a used car. Of course, What Car must justify its spend on these sorts of surveys so one would expect a degree of exaggeration but it doesn’t hide the fact that 30% of their survey respondents, driving cars that were 4 years old or less, said that they had suffered a fault within the last 12 months.
Some cars come with a 3-year warranty whilst others cover up to 7 years but even so only 52% of those with faults had them repaired under warranty. 22% had to pay bills of £101-£200 whilst 6% had bills in excess of £1,500. Their report goes into great detail and covers 159 models over 31 brands.
I have to say that some of the findings were surprising and certainly didn’t agree with the feelings of some of my customers but if you are thinking of buying or leasing a car the report may be of interest. The October edition of What Car is still available on the newsagent’s shelves.
In answer to the question – which is the most reliable? Up top 4 years old it is Suzuki followed by Lexus. Over 4 years old Lexus followed by Dacia. Bottom of the pile, 20% lower than the next up was Tesla at 57.3% reliability with Land Rover second from bottom at 76.5%. By Graham Hill
