Japanese cars are 'most reliable' used car brands in UK
When it comes to choosing a new or used car you have to carefully weigh up many factors. One of the most important has to be reliability, with equal consideration given to maintainance and the cost of repairs in the event of breakdown.
Over the last 65 years the Bowater Motor Group has sold quite a range of car brands, from the early days of Nelson built Triumph's through to Rover, Land Rover & Leyland over the years to name but a few of the many we have had.
The end result of those 65 years worth of experience is the brands we sell right now - just as this BBC article explains, the Japanese have the reliability market all sewn up!
Japanese carmakers Honda, Toyota and Lexus have been named the most reliable used car brands in the UK in a survey by What Car? and Warranty Direct.
Article posted on the BBC website:
25 July 2012
Author; Jorn Madslien
Business reporter, BBC News
Photo: 2012 Honda Euro Civic
Suzuki and Subaru, also Japanese, were ranked fourth and fifth respectively in the survey of cars between three and 10 years old. South Korean carmaker Hyundai shared sixth place with Japan's Mazda and Mitsubishi.
By contrast, Land Rover was the least reliable marque surveyed.
Other luxury car brands, including Audi, Jaguar and Mercedes, were also among the 10 least reliable.
"They need to do better," said What Car?'s editor in chief, Chas Hallett, insisting these marques' poor reliability would be "surprising to many".
"Reliability is so important to motorists, especially when times are tough."
'Increasingly complex'
Owners of used Hondas have a 10% chance of their cars suffering a breakdown, according to the survey of 50,000 Warranty Direct policies.
"Japanese carmakers really do deliver on reliability and Honda is exceptionally good at this," said Mr Hallett, pointing out that this was the seventh year in a row when Honda topped the ranking.
US carmaker Chevrolet was the only non-Asian marque to rank as one of the 10 most reliable used cars.
Some 22% of Chevrolets break down at least once each year.
By comparison, the worst performing Japanese brand was Nissan, with a failure rate of 25%, just ahead of South Korea's Kia at 26%.
By contrast, seven in 10 Land Rover owners will experience a breakdown in any given year, the survey said.
Failure rates for other luxury marques was better at between 41% and 45%, while most mainstream European brands had failure rates of between 31% and 55%.
"Cars have become increasingly complex, with lots of gadgetry on board, especially on executive models, where buyers expect more and more bang for their buck," said Warranty Direct's managing director, Duncan McClure Fisher.
Jorn Madslien
Business reporter, BBC News
25 July 2012 Click here to see the BBC Article
