Reliable car brands 2023

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Chippy_Tea

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Some shockers Merc 23 & VW 26 o_O

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Lad in work just bought a 19 plate Volvo,24k miles,20 grand,with warranty.
He gets an engine light on which was diagnosed as a failed adblue injector and that it would have to have everything post injector replaced at a cost of over 4 grand! There was the usual wrangling as to whether it was covered but it was. The actual bill was £1700. But of a difference.
 
Hmm. Is this based on call outs of breakdown services or reporting by owners?

If it's reporting by owners I would suspect it's also heavily influenced by how the dealer handles/resolves any issues.

A lot of dealerships round my way are little more than box shifters these days and care little beyond the initial PCP (or whatever) period.
 
Clearly an American survey - a number of brands that we don't really get here in the UK.
I'd be interested to know the source too. It's got the "Engineering and Science" logo on it which is very untrustworthy "Facebook" brand.

You may not know, but you can see the source of info on Facebook pages by clicking the "About" and then looking at Page Transparency.
This page for instance....

"Primary country/region location for people who manage this Page includes:
India (8)
Location hidden by Page manager (1)"

The UK one survey interesting.
https://www.whatcar.com/news/reliability-survey-most-reliable-cars-brands/n26159

It has Volkswagen (Britain's best selling brand) right in the middle.
And Vauxhall bottom 3.
 
This month's Which? magazine has the car issue supplement that talks about this. I would trust that more than any other source.

But then again, I'm daily driving a 17 year old Type R. She still shifts like nothing else, and red lining at 8500rpm will never not be fun!
 
So basically buy Japanese if you want reliable.

German cars aren't what they used to be, I also wonder if the survey is only for cars below a certain age as my experience of modern BMWs is they are fine until you get to the 80 - 100k mark and then they initiate the self destruct sequence.

Weird that Porsche is near the top yet Audi / VW near the bottom as they share quite a few platforms. Must make the Porsche stuff in the good factory 😁

I've no idea why Subarus aren't more popular here, they seem to have disappeared of the roads, for a minute I wondered if they no longer sold in the UK but there's a website saying otherwise.
 
So basically buy Japanese if you want reliable.

German cars aren't what they used to be, I also wonder if the survey is only for cars below a certain age as my experience of modern BMWs is they are fine until you get to the 80 - 100k mark and then they initiate the self destruct sequence.

Weird that Porsche is near the top yet Audi / VW near the bottom as they share quite a few platforms. Must make the Porsche stuff in the good factory 😁

I've no idea why Subarus aren't more popular here, they seem to have disappeared of the roads, for a minute I wondered if they no longer sold in the UK but there's a website saying otherwise.

Yes kind of, but to use the example of the Honda Civic, the tenth generation Civics that are only now being phased out for 11th; have a serious engine oil dilution problem were the fuel gets mixed into the engine oil. They will not last as long as the 7th, 8th, 9th gens as a result; which is a real shame because those cars and those engines were absolutely bulletproof. A hard won reputation.

Feels like we just live in the age of planned obsolescence now, and barely any products are built to last.
 
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I've no idea why Subarus aren't more popular here, they seem to have disappeared of the roads, for a minute I wondered if they no longer sold in the UK but there's a website saying otherwise.
They are fully partnered with Toyota, in fact I think that toyota owns a big chunk of Subaru and therefore they target each brand according to regions. For instance the yota gt86 is sold in europe, but not the subaru brz. But in Australia it's the other way round
Same car, same factory, different badge

edited to add, yes they are sold here, but they just aren't advertised at all really compared to toyota
 
Clearly every car has its pros and cons.
I'm on my 4th Lexus, the current one is the NX450h+ plug-in hybrid, 2024 model.
Until now they have all been very reliable, but...

Last week Mrs. Sneedhearn and I jumped into the car and I pressed the start button. The headlights began to flash on and off rapidly and the dashboard screen went blank. "Odd", I thought. So I attempted to get out of the car to see what was going on, but we were locked in. The doors wouldn't open, electric windows wouldn't work etc. (Not that I could have got out through a window :laugh8:)

Anyway, I got onto the internet on my phone and discovered there is a way to manually open the doors from inside and that the symptoms indicated that the vehicle battery was flat (not the hybrid drive train battery).

It seems that this is a known issue and regular occurrence with this model especially if the car is only used for short journeys.

I don't remember the sales dude mentioning it though...
 
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I don't remember the sales dude mentioning it though...

Its a well known problem with all hybrids the 12v is tiny as it only powers the lights etc so not driving it often or not driving it long enough to recharge it will kill it.

Toyota Hybrids are well known for it and you are right sales staff don't ask you if you are going to use the car for short journeys and when you say yes show you something more suitable.
 
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