No car owner would knowingly choose an unreliable vehicle.
For reasons of safety, value for money and simply trusting your car’s ability
to get you from A to B without any hassle, reliability matters.
But what are the most reliable cars on our roads? With
dozens of manufacturers jostling for position trying to sell hundreds of
different models of car, that’s not an easy question to answer. Every car maker
claims their vehicles are supremely reliable, for obvious reasons. And while
there are plenty of independent studies carried out to assess reliability, they
all seem to come out with different answers as to which marques breakdown the
least .
Not very helpful for anyone trying to pick out a reliable
new car purchase.
To help out, we’ve had a look at three of the most
referred-to studies in the UK - the Reliability
Index, the What Car? Reliability Survey and Car Buyer’s Driver Power survey - to pick out
the names that are rated highest across all three. On that basis, here’s our
perspective on the top three most reliable cars you can currently purchase in
the UK.
Hyundai i Series
The Hyundai i Series spans a broad range of hatchback types
and budgets, from small city runarounds to sporty sedan-type designs. But one
thing they all have in common is impressive ratings for reliability. Both the
i10 and i20 make the current top 10 of the Reliability Index, at positions six
and eight respectively. The i10 ranks fifth in the City and Small Car category of the latest What
Car? Reliability Survey, with an overall reliability rating of 97.6%. The i30,
meanwhile, appears in third place in the Family Car category with a similar rating of
97.7%. Overall, given how consistently all i Series models seem to perform
across different surveys, we would have to conclude that these are currently
the most reliable cars available in the UK.
Honda Jazz
The Honda Jazz outperforms both the Hyundai i10 and i20 in
the What Car? City and Small Car category, achieving second place with an
impressive 93.8% rating. If you want further confirmation of how trustworthy
this popular small car is, look no further than the Reliability Index, where it
again pips both the i10 and i20 with a fifth-placed ranking overall.
Volvo XC40
One of the difficulties in comparing different reliability
surveys is that different studies seem to have clear biases to different types
of car. The Reliability Index, for example, clearly favours smaller vehicles,
while the Car Buyer Driver Power survey comes out very much in the pro-SUV
camp. In the interests of balance, therefore, here’s an offering from the
latter. The Driver Power survey ranks the Volvo XC40 as the most reliable
vehicle out there full stop, with a 98% reliability rating from owners. The
fact that it also ranks second in the What Car? Family SUV category, with a rating of 98.4%,
is good enough for us to include it here.
*The information in this blog is designed to provide helpful information on the subjects discussed. Please seek a professional for expert advice as we can not be held responsible for any damages or negative consequences upon following this information.