Does it matter where your vehicle is built?
It’s not just a car’s looks, MPG, carrying capacity or its ability to hold onto its value that you need to know about — reliability is crucial too. But how will you know?
Recent research reveals that some of our preconceptions might need revising. According to Warranty Direct’s Reliability Index, it’s Japanese and French brands that now produce Europe’s most reliable cars.
The vehicles they analysed were an average of five years old, with mileages of around 50,000.
Japanese brands dominated the top of the table with marques including Honda, Toyota, Mazda and Nissan producing some of the most reliable models on the market. French carmakers — Citroën (makers of the Cactus, above), Peugeot and Renault — come second in the reliability rankings with South Korea completing the top three, with Hyundai and Kia among the country’s more dependable exports.
According to Warranty Direct, UK cars didn’t do so well thanks to lower reliability scores from Jaguar and Land Rover, despite these two generally impressive brands’ sales successes helping Indian parent company Tata triple net profits for the first quarter of 2014, as reported this week.
However, Japanese brands are most susceptible to axle and suspension problems, responsible for an average 25 per cent of faults. French and South Korean vehicles are more likely to develop electrical faults, at 29 per cent and 22 per cent of cases respectively.
There’s good news for the UK too; Japanese manufacturers Honda and Nissan have successful models that are built in Britain. The reliable Nissan Qashqai is produced in Sunderland, while the Honda Civic rolls out of a plant at Swindon. MINI, owned by the German BMW Group, and made in Oxford, also scored well for reliability.
“Though the automotive industry has many blurred lines now in terms of countries of origin, the average consumer maintains certain preconceptions about car brands and the countries that create them,” said Warranty Direct managing director, David Gerrans.
“German reliability is an oft-used phrase, but as demonstrated here the country’s output as a whole doesn’t match up to its close neighbours, the French, whose cars as a whole are more reliable.”
COUNTRIES AND THEIR CAR BRANDS
Japan: Honda, Lexus, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, Suzuki, Toyota
France: Citroën, Peugeot, Renault
South Korea: Hyundai, Kia, SsangYong
United States: Chevrolet, Chrysler, Ford, Jeep
Sweden: Saab, Volvo
Germany: Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, MINI, Smart, Volkswagen
Italy: Alfa Romeo, Fiat
United Kingdom: Jaguar, Land Rover, Vauxhall
Follow David Williams on Twitter at @djrwilliams
