7:22 am, September 29, 2022
The Land Rover Discovery has been named as the most unreliable used car in a survey of nearly 25,000 owners.
The What Car? Reliability Survey found the Discovery – models made between 2017 and the present day – were the most likely to break down after quizzing owners.
The survey asked owners of cars aged up to five years old whether their car had gone wrong in the past two years.
They were also quizzed how long repairs took and how much they cost, with these factors determining a score out of 100. The higher the score, the more reliable the car is.
The Discovery scored 70.7 per cent.
What Car? found that Discovery owners were most likely to experience problems with electrics (24 per cent), bodywork (18 per cent) and batteries (12 per cent).
Two Audi models followed close behind in the unreliability survey.
The Q5 (2008-2017) was second most unreliable with a score of 73.4 per cent, closely followed by the Q3 (2002-present) with a score of 74.2 per cent.
The Peugeot 3008 diesel was in fourth in the unreliability used car survey (74.4 per cent) and the Volkswagen Touran (2015-present) was fifth with 75.2 per cent. The full top 10 is below.
What Car? editor Steve Huntingford said: ‘Everyone is feeling the pinch right now, so unexpected car repair bills are the last thing any of us need.’
Of the 24,927 drivers surveyed, 21 per cent had experienced a fault with their car.
An impressive 83 per cent of those problems were solved under warranty, free of charge, however nine per cent had cost up to £500 to fix.
Two per cent of those used car drivers who had problems faced a bill of more than £1,500.
Some 37 per cent of respondents to the What Car? survey could still be driven when the fault occurred and 26 per cent were solved within a week by car dealers.
Least reliable used cars
- Land Rover Discovery (2017-present) – 70.7%
- Audi Q5 (2008 – 2017) – 73.4%
- Audi A3 (2020-present) – 74.2%
- Peugeot 3008 diesel (2017-present) – 74.4%
- Volkswagen Touran (2015 – present) – 75.2%
- Volkswagen Golf SV (2014 – present) – 75.8%
- Nissan X-Trail (2014-present) – 75.8%
- Porsche 718 Cayman (2016 – on) – 77.9%
- Mercedes A-Class hybrid (2018-present) – 78.4%
- Skoda Octavia (2020-present) – 78.7%
Jim Holder, editorial director at What Car?, said: ‘Lexus and Mini aside, of particular note is how many models from so-called premium brands performed poorly.
‘It’s clear that the perceptions driven by marketing are often not meeting expectations, and that the additional price you pay for an upmarket badge not only doesn’t guarantee better reliability, but actually can mean you are more likely to suffer an issue than if you had bought a more affordable car from a mainstream manufacturer.’
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In the same survey, What Car? also named the most reliable used car models.
Four models achieved a perfect 100 per cent reliability rating – with the Hyundai Tucson (2021-present), Kia Soul (2014-2019), Mini Convertible (2016-present) and Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross (2017-2021) all scoring 100 per cent.
Top 10 most reliable models
- Hyundai Tucson (2021-present) – 100%
- Kia Soul (2014-2019) – 100%
- Mini Convertible (2016 – present) – 100%
- Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross (2017-2021) – 100%
- Toyota RAV4 (2019-present) – 99.5%
- Lexus CT200h (2011-2021) – 99.3%
- Toyota Auris (2013-2019) – 99.3%
- Toyota Aygo (2014-2022) – 99.1%
- Mazda CX-3 (2016-present) – 99.1%
- Lexus UX hybrid (2019-present) – 99.0%
When it came to brand performance, Lexus was the best overall followed by Toyota, for making the most reliable cars.
The worst for reliability overall was Jeep, Land Rover was second and Fiat third.
