9:19 am, March 1, 2023
Almost a third of car buyers are put off buying a specific brand of vehicle if a previous model has given them headaches over reliability, a new study has found.
Data collected by What Car? found that prior issues with reliability are enough to turn 30.3 per cent of motorists off a specific manufacturer.
The researched canvased the views of 1,022 in-market buyers to find out perceptions on vehicle reliability and previous experiences with cars they’ve owned.
When it came to specific brands, buyers believed that firms that belong to the same manufacturing group, such as Stellantis or Volkswagen Group, would have similar reliability records to their sister brands.
A total of 41.4 per cent were of the opinion that brands in a manufacturing group typically have the same reliability record, while 22.2 per cent believed they would be very different. The rest (36.4 per cent) were unsure.
As part of the exercise, What Car? also looked at whether buyers believe EVs are generally more reliable than petrol or diesel models.
Despite the fact they generally have fewer moving parts, just 12.8 per cent of respondents believed that EVs would have fewer issues.
Meanwhile, 42.1 per cent said that would expect believe petrol and diesel cars to be more reliable and 45.1 per cent were undecided.
Overall, 137 of the motorists surveyed were expecting to buy an EV as their next car with half of that number (50.4 per cent) believing them to be more reliable and 40.2 per cent unsure.
Of the 510 buyers opting for a petrol or diesel car, 60.2 per cent believed ICE vehicles were more reliable than EVs, with 34.3 per cent unsure.
Steve Huntingford, editor, What Car?, said: ‘This data highlights once again just how important a reputation for reliability is for manufacturers – and why our annual Reliability Survey is so important in keeping Britain’s car buyers up to date on the latest issues being faced by car makers.
‘It also shows that the advantages of EVs having far fewer moving parts, and therefore less things to go potentially wrong, remains an important message that the industry needs to get out there if it wants to continue to grow consideration among would-be buyers.’
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