A 91H Mercedes 1.8 190E, a 99V Toyota RAV4 2.0 auto and a 53 Vectra 2.0T are three that (personally) meet your criteria.
All looked after by me and main dealer serviced on time. The Vectra had one issue quickly resolved under warranty.
I have had other cars in between that didn't fare so well...
Edited by Marc on 26/09/2009 at 23:24
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I would have to vote Honda, Mazda & Toyota - however as you only buy a handful of cars in a period of a few years you might get a problem with 1.
That said I have had Japanese (Honda, Mazda, Nissan, Toyota) for 14 years (all new or less than 2,000 miles) and other than warranty repairs which are modest (but still annoying) I have spent very little on 5 Japanese cars in REPAIRS (exclude tyres, exhaust, brakes etc.) Probably £1500 in 14 years. Mileages around 25,000 /year until 3/4 yrs ago now 10K/year.
Contrast 1 x Mercedes C Class 1997 just out of warranty where fuel pump fitted was £800 / Wiper motor fitted £500 - the next thing to go was the C Class!
Best was Honda - why do I not have a Honda today? Franchise who will remain nameless tried to rip me off for £1500+ repairs to a 92,000 mile car (owned from new)- looked at by AN Other Honda dealer (@Honda UK expense) who said the disks were thinning but OK and I needed 2 tyres in the near future - the 1st garage said there were disks, pads, suspension bushes, AC Condenser............................kept the car another 15 months - serviced & topped up the AC with fluid, 2 tyres then sold it!
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I'd have thought, perhaps naively, that most modern cars kept properly maintained would give 5 or 6 years more or less trouble free use easily over 60k miles. Except 2.2d Espaces of course.
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I suppose based on your criteria, willingness to have main dealer servicing and if you are not brand concious....Hyundai or possibly Kia. 5 and 7 year warranties respectively. I have a Hyundai and I think it's 5 years and 100,000 miles. In the top 6 for reliability anyway, so I presume there are not too many problems....not a brand name car I suppose, but it does the job, is well equipped and value for money.
My other car is a Honda Civic, nearly 8 years old now and it's never missed a beat or needed any repairs....I just couldn't afford another Honda this time round.
Edited by davecuk on 27/09/2009 at 00:18
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Agree Dave, i read HJ's appraisal of the facelifted Ceed tonight, seems the body work warranty goes up from 10 to 12 years and 7 years bumper to bumper normal warranty.
Impresses the hell out of me, i already like what i've seen of them underneath.
Interesting thread this BP and one i could have asked too, we seem to have vehicles designed to last the warranty period with minimal servicing purely to make them attractive to the fleet market.
I often wonder if the manufacturers design their vehicles to become increasingly expensive to maintain as they approach 7 or so years deliberately.
With all the dubious expensive fitments now becoming so common, dmf, dpf, automated manuals, leccy handbrakes etc many cars made in the last 3 years will i'm certain be on the scrap heap by 7 or 8 declared uneconomic repair...of course that could change as we are seeing increased costs of used cars.
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With all the dubious expensive fitments now becoming so common dmf dpf automated manuals leccy handbrakes etc many cars made in the last 3 years will i'm certain be on the scrap heap by 7 or 8 declared uneconomic repair...of course that could change as we are seeing increased costs of used cars.
Interestingly aircon is not mentioned. I've just had the aircon serviced on my 5 years old next Tuesday Volvo. Down 25% on gas. I had a previous FIAT done at the same mileage though younger, no gas and a bill on the warranty to fix.
Is aircon considered a serviceable item or should it just last fifteen years like a kitchen fridge though it operates in a very hostile environment ?
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>>will i'm certain be on the scrap heap by 7 or 8 declared uneconomic repair
We're doomed,.... doomed I tell ye!!
Needless to say, I have a slightly more optimistic outlook!
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Needless to say I have a slightly more optimistic outlook!
Maybe people like yourself will be able to take advantage of the situation and buy such cars cheaply and rebuild them yourselves...may even be viable new small industries spring up doing presicely that, ass uming they can get the information referred to on another thread.
Not so sure how many normal owners of DSG, DPF equpped cars on the blink will fare so well.
I don't seem to recall you being in too much of a hurry to embrace all this must have new technology on your own transport.
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I'm of the opinion that these teething troubles will settle down GB. The manufacturers who don't overcome these problems will suffer when compared to those who do - the news travels fast these days.
People were saying similar doom laden things at the introduction of many of the technologies that most people now take for granted, and don't worry about too much (well, apart from the most Luddite among us!)
As for our cars, I can't bring myself to want that generation of 16v Vauxhall engines, and so, SWMBO's Astra is an 8 valve, and my W124 is my concession to automotive deviance - SWMBO would not release the funds for a newer car, and I certainly wouldn't want a rotting W210.
I'm sure that before too long, cars fitted with these new technologies will sit on our drive.
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>>many cars made in the last 3 years will i'm certain be onthe scrap heap by 7 or 8 declared uneconomic repair...of course that could change as we are seeing increased costs of used cars.
I agree Gordon... round here (thames valley) you see more P R S T cars than you do 51 02 52....
early Merc A classes are getting rare, and i see more late E36's than early E46's.... that to me speaks volumes.
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I think how it has been treated is more important than any brand.
That said round were I live you still see loads of 12-13 year old Fiestas/Corsas. My dads Ford is an R reg when I was bord I typed in a range of my dads plate between and 100 e.g Rxxx AAA where AAA are the letters. All of them came up as a Ford and within that range only 8 of them had been scrapped. That means that on average only 8% of 12 year old Fords are off scrapped, considering half that would have been written off it means 4% had been scrapped due to not worthing fixing/scrappage scheme.
I think a big part of this is how well mechanics know cars and how cheap parts are. A Suzuki Beleno may be cheap motoring but if nobody has a clue how to decode a fualt code what is the point?
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My car being well out of its warranty period, it is now at that age where one would expect things to go wrong, but aside from a slightly rattly caliper, nothing has, it just keeps going and going.
Reliability these days seems to be hugely dependant on the quality of the electrics since they play such a primary role in the functioning of the car ( unless you own a Corsa of a certain age ;-) ).
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Going back to the original question, it's easier to say makes no to buy.
Males to avoid are : all French
Fiat
SAAB
GM
and Mercedes from 1996 to 2005.
Jaguar
Land Rover.
All based on reliability surveys..
No doubt I have forgotten a few.
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Males to avoid are : all French
Drat! I was just about the marry a French male
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gordonbennet at Sun 27 Sep 09 00:08 said " .... ass uming they can get the information referred to on another thread. ... "
madf at Sun 27 Sep 09 10:07 said "Males to avoid are : all French"
My question is, have you two joined Guy Lacey's famous backroom day club:
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?v=e&t=24...4
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My dads Ford is an R reg when I was bord I typed in a range of my dads plate between and 100 e.g Rxxx AAA where AAA are the letters. All of them came up as a Ford.....
they would be!
DVLA supply dealers blocks of numbers, so if you look at a range, like you did, most probably you will hit the same block of numbers that DVLA supplied!
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I think there is a difference between mechanical problems and design problems !!
Just to clarify what I mean in that Toyota's are known for being a very reliable cars but some models do have problems !! but the difference is the problems are more to do with an initial problem on a particular part design this is normally rectified under warranty and the car then remains reliable .
Other manufacturers there problems are with parts which are not manufactured to the same standard and then can cause problems 3-4 years on
Thats just my take on it !!
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With all the dubious expensive fitments now becoming so common dmf dpf automated manuals leccy handbrakes etc
I guess you could add ABS and various acronyms for traction & stability control to that list, and they're already fairly widely fitted.
Any of those things going wrong in years 3-6 could produce a horribly large bill which you have little alternative but to pay. Even if someone can fix them down to component level without replacing expensive modules, then the labour cost will likely be high.
As you suggest, failures at 7-8 years would have owners trying to figure out whether it's economically viable to repair the car.
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madf - are you sure about avoiding Jaguar cars, based on reliability surveys?
According to the latest JD Power survey in June 2009 they were pretty good. 6th out of 29 makes, in fact. Ahead of BMW, Audi, Volvo, Mazda, VW, Nissan et cetera.
tinyurl.com/mk3dxn
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>>..the body work warranty goes up from 10 to 12 years ..>>
My VW Bora, 10 years old in November, has a 12-year bodywork warranty...:-)
Doubt if I will ever need to use it.
Edited by Stuartli on 28/09/2009 at 11:59
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