JAPANESE and Korean marques – and Honda in particular - are still the best choice for a used car you can rely on.
That’s according to figures released today which also show that it is cars from European brands which break down the most.
Honda tops the standings in the annual car reliability study from What Car? magazine and Warranty Direct for an unprecedented sixth year in a row, recording an impressive nine per cent failure rate.
In fact the top 10 manufacturers all come from either Japan or Korea. The pecking order is: Honda, Toyota, Suzuki, Lexus, Mitsubishi, Mazda, Subaru, Hyundai, Kia and Nissan.
At the other end of the scale British marque Land Rover is named the least reliable brand, with 55 per cent of its vehicles suffering faults in a 12-month period.
The top two European brands are Skoda and Smart in 11th and 12th spots, preventing an even stronger showing for Far Eastern manufacturers, by nudging ahead of Daewoo.
Meanwhile, the most expensive brand to repair is sports car manufacturer Porsche at an average cost of £690, followed by Mazda at £463 and Jeep at £438.
In contrast Fiat, Renault and Ford models cost the least to repair, at around £250 on average as European cars make up seven of the cheapest 10 brands to fix.
Further differences between European and Far Eastern manufacturers can be found in the problems they suffer the most.
A third of faults found on European cars are down to electrical malfunctions, while owners of Japanese Subaru, Lexus and Suzuki cars report the most axle and suspension issues – accounting for nearly two in five of all their breakdowns.
The figures are based on Warranty Direct’s 50,000 live policies on cars of between three to eight years of age and company chief Duncan McClure Fisher said: “Car buying is a tricky business, but all most people want is hassle-free motoring.
“While our study is the most comprehensive of its kind, we won’t see robust data on the very latest cars to be launched. We’ll have to wait around three years for that – nobody has a crystal ball to assess cars launched recently.”