Research reveals the most reliable vehicles

21:53 November 7, 2009 PST

A large percentage of the cars on the road, up to half in some countries, are owned and maintained by fleet management groups rather than individuals. In recent times we’ve seen a number of fleet management companies begin producing statistics on the reliability of their often massive fleets to better inform the public on the reliability of current vehicles. Now U.K. publication Fleet News has conducted research across a number of the major British fleets to produce a reliability survey across more than a million late model vehicles to reveal that the Honda Civic is the UK’s most reliable car and the Ford Transit the most reliable van. Honda snagged three of the top four most reliable cars but got beaten as the most reliable manufacturer.

The research, making it the largest vehicle reliability survey ever conducted in the country, quizzed companies involved in the contract hire and leasing sector and asked them to rate each vehicle they have on their fleet.

In total, the reliability survey covered 840,000 cars and 183,000 light commercial vehicles.

Tables of the top 10 most reliable cars and top five most reliable vans are listed below, as are tables for the most reliable car and van manufacturers.

Stephen Briers, editor of Fleet News said: “This survey is the largest of its kind in the country and is based on feedback from those who really know about the reliability of vehicles – people who run hundreds of thousands of vehicles over many hundreds of thousands of miles.”

The survey saw Honda score highly, with the Civic in top spot followed by the Jazz in third and Accord in fourth place. BMW was second and fifth with the 3 Series and 5 Series respectively, while Mini placed eighth.

Overall, BMW was named as the most reliable car manufacturer – although it finished tied for top spot with Honda more contract hire and leasing companies voted BMW as top.

The Ford Transit was named most reliable van, with its Transit Connect sister model third, while Ford took the overall reliability title.

Most reliable car

Honda Civic BMW 3 Series Honda Jazz Honda Accord BMW 5 Series Audi A4 Mercedes Benz C-Class Mini Toyota Avensis Volkswagen Golf

Most reliable car manufacturer

BMW Honda Audi Toyota Volkswagen Mercedes-Benz Ford Mazda Nissan Skoda

Most reliable van

Ford Transit Vauxhall Astravan Ford Transit Connect Mercedes-Benz Sprinter Volkswagen Transporter

Most reliable van manufacturer

Ford Mercedes-Benz Volkswagen Vauxhall Peugeot

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User Comments (3)

They don't sell half those models in the U.S.

Christian Breiding

- November 9, 2009 @ 10:11 am CST

Reliable cars. Both the English AA, American AA, Nz AA have surveyed members about car reliability. number 1 was Toyota. they are the least expensive cars to keep going also according to NZ AA. Ist survey to age five years then 5 to 10 years.

This explains why Toyota is now the 2 largest car manufacturer in the world.

Cheers John M

John M

- November 9, 2009 @ 11:11 am CST

The fact that Toyota has expanded to be "the 2 largest car manufacturer in the world" may be why their quality has slipped to the point where they are consistently outranked by Honda, Mazda and Subaru (depending on which survey). The fleet management data is more interesting than consumer sentiment as it tends to reflect workshop experience.

Recall data shows Toyota to be a leader - but not in a good way (3.8 million in the current round of recalls) and meanwhile some 3 million Toyotas/Lexus cars are afflicted with an unresolved "sludging" problem.

The world is not static.

Ludwig Heinrich

- November 18, 2009 @ 08:11 pm CST