Safe Speed Forums

Believe it or not .. forget all the jokes of wheels falling off and only way to double the values is to fill the petrol tank! Seems the humble Skoda

It seems the Skoda (really VW) need fewest repairs and are cheapest to maintain on services.

"What Car" claims Landys, Audis, and Alfas cause more headaches than any other make for things going wrong.

Mercs were named as Europe's "prestige" car but Jap and Korean brands are the least trouble of all. Honda is the most reliable brand beating Mazda to the top spot and Toyota is in third position followed by Nissnam Lexus, Hyundai, Mitsunbishi and Dawoo(Chevrolet)

It seems fewer than one in ten Hondas need a repair in two years whilst 45% of Landys werein the garage.

Astoundingly when Jap cars do need repairs - can range from £325 to £835 and Porsche top the bilwith £925! Hyundai appears to be the cheapest at £135.

Utter tosh really. Wildy and self are Jag lovers and can honestly say these cars have not given one second's trouble and maintenance has not made me throw

So - based on your car experience - is survey accurate of has it been scewed?

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Mum and dad have run skodas since 1980. They''ve had an S1100L, 3 super estelles, 3 favorits 1 favorit pick up and are on their second felicia and have a felicia pickup too. The car is a y2k on a v with over 80k on it. Reliable? Hmm, it's better screwed together than pre VW and by and large has been good, but mum works nights as a nurse and was none too please when the day after it was serviced it failed to start after they topped thet battery up and it also over heats. Glad they didn't pay the premium for those parts to fail in a polo.

My 1998 honda civic has never missed a beat as yet. The blower resister has packed up though, tsk. My 1990 Honda c90 never goes wrong either....

I have a Japanese car (Mazda) on which nothing whatsoever has gone wrong (touch wood) after 29 months and 31,000 miles.

However, you sometimes wonder whether these surveys are skewed by the fact that those who buy, say, Hyundais, tend to

(a) have lower expectations than those who buy Audis, and
(b) tend to use their cars in a less demanding manner

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Peter E, I have a Honda cos the golf wasn't reliable enough and the rev counter has met the red line and rev limiter on the odd occasion too . I have very high expectation of my car and it has lived up to them. A guy in my running club had an 04 A4 which needed a new clutch . That wasn't as bad as the guy he worked with that had an A4 that was on it's second

I can believe the Skoda thing, my dad bought an X-Reg Octavia a few year back and he loves it. Got loads kit with it compared to a Golf, and cheaper too. He's been to Crotia and back twice and Portugal. He also says he gets cracking service from his local dealer.

I agree with you Peter that people with lesser brand cars expect less and that will skew the results. However, its fair to say though that if your spending 20/30/40k on a car and a sky-high labour rate at dealers its only right that you should be getting a top notch service.

As an aside, we've got a Renault Kangoo at work and thats now done 75,000 miles without a single problem. Not even a bit of loose trim! I'm pretty impressed to be honest, especially considering it's French!

So far my own motor has been faultless since I bought it in Dec 2003 and some 13000 miles later its running better then ever. Milage rate is creeping up as well, I estimate to do nearlk 10k this year.

Once had a Mk II Golf, bought second hand with full service history. Six months later the gearbox selector fork broke and suddenely every gear including neutral was actually second. Getting it home was fun, as was working out how to get it on the drive in a way which would allow me to get it back off again. A couple of years later all the teeth fell off the cam belt when I started it one morning - and that was a proper VW belt that had only done half the mileage it ought to have. So much for the legendary reliability of VW . Sold it with a cheap belt from the local auto factors place.

The 4th gen Honda Prelude we have now did let me down once when the dizzy went kaput - apparently something that they're prone to depending on which dizzy was used. I've got a car that uses the iffy one . Other than that, it's failed to start twice, both times due to flat batteries. Even then the second time was probably my fault for having inadvertantly bought an inadequate battery. And that's a ten year old car! I've come to love Hondas.

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Only considering relatively new cars...

Previous Ford Mondeo ST200 never actually broke down, but it did have the following problems in the three years that I had it: Aircon failed (x3), moosing noise (design fault, no official fix), revving itself to 3000 rpm in queues while at idle (scary in 200bhp car), shock absorber failed (4 visits to convince dealer!), and driver seat electric adjustment failed. Shock was a real problem causing dangerous understeer (MOT fail?), and while quickfit identifed problem in 2 seconds with the wheel off, the dealer kept assuring me there was nothing wrong until I told him how quickfit had tested it. Quality of dealer support was awful.

Current Subaru Impreza (1 y 4 m): exhaust moved on mountings causing knock on turnover when starting from warm, and I once had to turn the starter twice after leaving it for 3 weeks in the middle of winter. Servicing costs £0 (three year deal).

Mrs Rewolfs Subaru Forrester (2y 5m): nothing wrong at all that she has mentioned except rattle caused by poor quality aftermarket mobile phone fitting - can't blame Subaru for that.

Mrs Rewolfs previous Pergeot 406 (3y): Clutch cable snapped at M40/M25 junction in temporary queue leaving car stuck in gear, engine stalled, with traffic streaming down both sides of the vehicle and lorries having to swerve at the last minute because it was too late to brake very, very, scary. Numerous other minor problems and Mrs Rewolf swore that she would never, ever, ever use a Pergeot dealer again because of their crap quality and condecending attitude. Mrs Rewolf has BSc and MA in Mechanical Engineering.

My parents both have Hondas, swear by them, and haven't considered anything else in the last 10 years after switching to them.

So in general we think the Survey is pretty accurate.

Well it certainly isn't a Vauxhall Corsa !

Ours has started running like its on "kangaroo" petrol and won't pull over 3 thousand revs .

Vauxhall use they're all singing, all dancing diagnostic tester , charge me £70 pounds and tell me nothing is wrong with it, "thats a strange one " say's the mechanic.

Must be my imagination !

Just had my 98 Golf 1.6 serviced and MOT'd. New cambelt. No problems. Never have, although our mileage has dropped to silly levels, 5,100 miles per annum, including 2,000 holiday miles last year and nearly 2000 miles in family visits

I'm happy to stick with VW, although I realise Skoda may be better value for money. I'm after a Touran next year (2 year old diesel), and unfortunately Skoda don't do an equivalent, yet.

Anyway time to test the car again. Off tomorrow to hopefully sunnier climes, to our German chums who live in the Schwarzwald between Offenburg and Freiburg, then down to Lindau am Bodensee. I'm looking forward to the trip, and the drive, and I might even pop into the Swiss hills in Appenzell to hunt for a pride of local feral Wildkatzen.

I've heard they are a particularly sharp clawed breed, although I have heard that their miaow is worse than their scratch!

Back in a while!

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Family car is a Citroen Xantia 1.9 Diesel here, 323,000 miles on the clock and the engine is still going strong.

It's a bit "battered & bruised" after being hit while parked up outside our house one night, but has just gone through another MOT without a hitch.

Breakdowns.......absolutely none in the 80,000 or so miles that we have had it with the exception of the eleccy window switch on the drivers door.

Clutch bite point is starting to get a bit high on the pedal, but it isn't slipping yet.

Costs a grand total of £22.50 every 10,000 miles for an engine service (fuel, air & oil filters + 1 gallon of cheap oil).

A very cheap car to keep running indeed.

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91 VW Jetta. Soooo solid. Never had any major trouble with it. I would like to purchase a new VW but with the cost of running a car up there with the cost of purchasing I just can not convince the wife. Oh well. Kids take priority I guess...

Thank god for reliable vehicles.

hmmmmm

Then again maybe she would let me buy one if this one broke down all the time Maybe I should poke a hole in the oilpan one day and just shrug when the thing konks out at the shops..

Oh I can smell that new car smell already

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Another day, another ticket.

I know its pride before a fall but had my audi TT for just under 3 years and have to say its excellent.

never had any sort of fault.

And I can assure you its not the most pampered of vehicles.