What model to look for when buying a used car?
What to look for when buying a used car? It would be best if you considered several things, but first: which car model is reliable after few years? It is better to leave these models alone, according to the British consumer organization.
Almost 13,000 Britons were questioned by the British consumer organization ‘What Car’ about the reliability of their cars. The results provide a top 25 of models that you had better leave behind as a prospective buyer of a used car.
The consumer organization wanted to know if the vehicles had undergone repairs in the past 12 months. The breakdowns were categorized into fourteen groups: battery, body, brakes, fuel system, infotainment/dashboard, and steering/suspension were included.
For each breakdown, the organization asked the owner how long the car had to stay in the garage and how much the repairs cost.
This information was used to create a reliability score for 175 models from 31 brands. The cars that were the most expensive to repair and spent the longest time in the garage received the lowest scores, and the models with few or no problems received the highest ratings.
Remarkably, a car with a not-great failure rate made it to the last place.
The reason this Porsche Macan still dangles at the bottom of these rankings is that repairs turned out to be very expensive (almost one in three repairs cost around 1750 euros), and the SUV was often in the garage for a long time when something was wrong. The full top 25, including key problem areas, can be found here.
Least reliable used cars
Rankings | Car Models | Years | Reliability score (%) |
10 | Opel Zafira | 2005-2015 | 60.60 |
9 | Volkswagen Passat | 2005-2015 | 57.90 |
8 | Mercedes A-Class | 2005-2012 | 56.30 |
7 | Skoda Octavia | 2004-2013 | 54.40 |
6 | Land Rover Discovery Sport | 2014-present | 51.40 |
5 | Nissan Qashqai diesel | 2014-2021 | 46.30 |
4 | Land Rover Discovery | 2004-2017 | 45.70 |
3 | Nissan Qashqai | 2007-2014 | 45.60 |
2 | BMW X5 | 2007-2013 | 42.60 |
1 | Porsche Macan | 2014-present | 40.40 |