Just like they do every year, Auto Plus publishes its list of the 20 most popular and reliable car brands. To do this, they collect data about the number of breakdowns people have had in specific models and cars released from 2012 with less than 150,000 kilometres on them, and then compare them with the number of sales over the same period. From this data, they obtain a ratio of the ‘number of breakdowns/number of cars in circulation over the last eight years’ for each brand.
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Asian brands in the lead
The leaderboard is practically identical to that of last year which is a sign of the ‘good standing of the brands involved’, as Auto Plus revealed. Toyota, Suzuki and Kia came out on top, with the only difference being that the Toyota was second last year instead of first and Suzuki was considered the most reliable. Toyota, despite coming fifth in 2017, has since shot up allowing it to take home first place. This massive increase, according to the magazine, can be explained by their particularly reliable hybrids and the rare problems they experience with diesel injectors.
But in second place, Suzuki still can’t really be faulted. Costly but rare reports of damage were only reported by a few drivers and as for Kia, mechanical breakdowns and problems were also a lot less frequent than they were for other brands. On the other hand, brands that were used to being near the top of the list, like Dacia, had plummeted. The final list is as follows:
- 1 / Toyota
- 2 / Suzuki
- 3 / Kia
- 4 / Seat
- 5 / Mini
- 6 / Dacia
- 7 / Volkswagen
- 8 / Hyundai
- 9 / Volvo
- 10 / Ford
- 11 / Renault
- 12 / BMW
- 13 / Opel
- 14 / Peugeot
- 15 / Citroën
- 16 / Skoda
- 17 / Mercedes
- 18 / Fiat
- 19 / Audi
- 20 / Nissan
