German cars slip gears in reliability
Volkswagen drove straight into the reliability category rated poor, in a survey by the Consumer Association’s Which? Car magazine.
Two other Volkswagen-owned companies, Seat and Audi, dropped from good to average in the reliability tables, while the Audi TT received one of the lowest scores for years.
In addition, another German car company, Mercedes Benz, slipped two categories, from best to average, in terms of reliability. No German carmaker managed to make it into either the best or good categories.
Dominating the top reliability places for both manufacturers and individual car models were the Asian firms, with Honda, Hyundai, Lexus, Mazda, Nissan and Toyota all in the best category of maker-reliability.
Based on breakdown rates in cars up to two-years-old, the most reliable were the Honda Accord, Honda Jazz, Mazda 323, Nissan Almera Tino, Nissan X-Trail, the Smart Car and the Toyota Celica, none of which suffered a breakdown.
At the other end of the scale, the least reliable model after the Audi TT was the Ford Galaxy, followed by the Citroen C3, the Mercedes E-class and the Saab 9-3.
The survey found that about one in 20 new cars was likely to have broken down during the last year.
