Just heard a bit on the radio concerning the Auto Express survey of 25,000 cars.
Didn\'t get all the details but Lexus came out top (surprise, surprise) with Jaguar 3rd !
Perhaps more interesting were the bunch propping up the foot of the table which were, I believe:
Fiat (worst), Daewoo, Peugeot, Lotus, Kia, Land Rover, Vauxhall,
Citroen, Renault, Suzuki.
The French not looking too good eh !
Audi were in at 10 and Skoda at 6 I think but VW were down at 24.
Overall the Mazda 6 was voted as the best car apparently.
Can anyone give more details.
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Glad to see Alfa Romeo not in Bottom 10!
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Not sure they were even in the survey Alfafan ;-)
and if you're happy with yours who cares anyway !
Just heard that Porsche were 2nd and Rover 16th BTW.
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V, please stop telling me that Vauxhall's are unreliable! Mine just *has* to be ;)
HF
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The Citroen C5 came above some notable others, including Mondeo, Volvo S80, Omega, Avensis, Primera, Golf, Laguna, Astra, Vectra and the 106 which came last.
It seems to me when looking over the tables at then end of the report, that the newer French cars generally are much better than the older ones.
Ben
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Hi Ben - do you have any more info ? Any chance of giving the full list ?
I believe there were some other awards/categories - can you enlighten us ? Thanks.
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How on earth has the Mazda6 been out long enough to come top in a reliability survey? What was the survey period, a month? Not that I've anything against Mazdas.
Darcy.
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I've always found these reliabilaty surveys to be a bit of a joke.
If you buy a good german car and you get small problems you will complain, but if you buy a cheaper car and get the same problem the chances are your not going to complain because you almost expect some problems.
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I totally agree Marcos, and the other thing, you give marks for things like comfort, brakes and all kinds of things, now I drive an Alfa 156 GTA and comfy it aint, however I knew this when buying, and if id wanted a comfy car I would have bought something else
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These reliability survey's aren't very good. They say that the Mazda's are more reliable than Toyota, but then there are far fewer Mazda's. The same applies to Lexus and Jaguar; If you compare one lexus or jaguar to say sixty ford's, then it is obvious that lexus and jaguar will be the most reliable!!
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Or, rather than counting the total number of breakdowns or complaints, you could work out the number per 1000 or per survey respondent...
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Marcos: I have a lot of sympathy for your view. The survey does not tell you that a given car has 2 engines and that 1 is good and 1 is bad. Maybe the diesel is a dog. Maybe not. It also does not take into account target market. And I don't think we are told the sample size for each car.
Even worse, we don't know the standard deviation. What this means in real terms, is that a car could have a good score, but half are awful and score 0 and half are fantastic and score 100. Obviously such a car should be avoided as you have a 1 in 2 chance of a dog.
Lastly the sampling of owners is limited to readers of Auto-Express magazine which in itself has to bias the results significantly. After all you might as well limit it to readers of Bunty. Just as daft.
Mind you, for all that, I bought the mag, and will be reading what they have to say. Boredom. At least that's my excuse.
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DK - I might be wrong but I think the Mazda 6 was voted the best all round car I believe, not the most reliable. As you say, it hasn't been around long enough for any such judgements to be made.
From what I heard I believe the reliability issues were linked to marques not models but awards were given to specific cars for certain driving characteristics. Apparently the second half of the survey results will be published next week/month(?).
I totally agree that such surveys cannot be said to be perfect but would personally bear the results in mind if/when purchasing a new car. For example, I'm sure they can and do pick up certain common faults which the makers would prefer us to be as ignorant about as possible until we have parted with our cash !
As I said before, I really don't know much about the criteria on which this survey is based but would like to know a lot more before deciding how meaningful it is.
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In terms of reliability, look to what you have previously owned. Down the years we have had six Fords with no problems whatsover. One Alfa 155, absolutely dire and one VW Golf, not as bad as the Alfa but still not great, in fact somewhat over rated. A couple of Fiats that were surprisingly OK. An old Talbot Samba - wifes first car was excellent.
We have just took the plunge with a Mazda, first ever Jap. car so it will be interesting to see if it is as reliable as claimed.
It is never easy to draw any conclusion from any survey so it is easy to stick with what you know, that is why the blue oval will be my first port of call.
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I\'ve driven French cars for 35 years, the oldest being just 12 years when I sold it. I have not had a single fault not attributed to wear and tear, especially on my Citroen BX (2), ZX (2) and Xsara (1) owned over the last 25 years.
I have however been in under 3 year old BMW, Jaguar(1 week old), and Mazda that have stopped dead on the open highway.
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I am amazed that the Citroen C5 even got on the list after all the problems it has had, and is having. Why do dealers refuse to take it as a trade in if it is so good. As happened to me. I find it hard to accept the credibility of this survey.
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Grey Pete,
Like most surveys and 'Car of the Year' competitions they have little credibility.
If owners are asked in a survey they are hardly objective - as the Skoda and Citroen lobby in the Back Room can testify. The European Car of the Year has been a joke for years; dominated by National interests and manufacturers with the largest promotional budgets.
C
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Ive just read the "offending" article and realise it is a TOTAL farce. I drive an Alfa 156 so was particularly interested, and noted it came 90th out of 100 for practicality!! (Above it was an Audi TT) Any survey which says an Audi TT is more practicle than an Alfa 156 is seriously floored.
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Yes, it's flawed, but it also provides an excellent idea of which cars to buy based on 10 different factors: Reliability, performance, practicality, gearbox etc.
Minimum samples are 25 respondents for each car, and the cars must all be less than 4 years old. The Focus had 841 respondents. It is clearly not the be all and end all of surveys, but many of the consistencies suggest that it has got some accuracy.
The Saxo and sister car 106 have been side by side both years, 18 out of the 20 most reliable cars are Japanese, etc.
Autoexpress is very open to the fact that a newer car will tend to do better as it hasn't had a further 3 years to go wrong. But one look at the recalls on the New Mini and it ain't necessarily so.
People seem willing to criticise these surveys, without reading them on occasions, because no one survey gives you everything. But taken with the JD Power, Warranty Direct, the gift of our eyes and our friend's stories, they give a very good picture of who should be ashamed - and what to buy.
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Agreed. So they are not perfect?
So you own the 1 FIAT Bravo that has had no problems for 4 years?
At least - if there is any consistency across several surveys, and there does appear to be so - it gives an indication.
Lumpimg user surveys together with "The European Car of the Year" (voted for by who? journalists? voting objectively?) is non-helpful.
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