Japanese cars remain most dependable

Japanese cars remain the most dependable, according to the results of the latest What Car? Reliability Survey.

Four out of the top five most highly ranked vehicles are from a Japanese brand, with the top two, the Toyota Yaris and the Suzuki Sx4 S-Cross, coming joint first, having both received 100% reliability scores.

Suzuki tops the overall brand reliability rankings for cars up to four years old, while the Nissan Leaf is the highest ranked electric vehicle, coming third in the overall model table.

The What Car? Reliability Survey 2018 reveals ratings for 159 models spanning 31 brands. Overall, around 30% of the 18,284 survey respondents with cars less than four years old said their car had suffered at least one fault in the past 12 months.

Steve Huntingford, editor of What Car?, said, ‘Reliability is a huge consideration for any prospective car buyer, as your car is likely to be your second biggest monthly expense after mortgage or rent payments. You want your car to last and you don’t want to have to fork out huge amounts to fix faults and keep it running.

‘Our annual survey has shown that it is Japanese models that continue to dominate the top of the reliability rankings, both for car model and brand rankings.’

At the other end of the scale, the Tesla Model S and Land Rover Range Rover didn’t fare as well, coming bottom of the model rankings with a reliability score of 50.9% and second to last with 67.3% respectively.