Honda Crowned UK’s Most Reliable Used Car Manufacturer

The 2015 ‘What Car’ survey has crowned Honda as the UK’s most reliable used car manufacturer for the ninth consecutive year, putting the Japanese brand ahead of luxury and premium vehicle names such as Jeep, Audit, Porsche and Bentley, all of whom occupy the bottom slots as the least reliable and most likely to break down.


The survey, which was conducted between What Car? and Warranty Direct placed 37 manufacturers against each other, analysing data of 50,000 live policies (from Warranty Direct) for cars between three and eight years old.

Japanese Manufacturers Topped The Table

What may seem surprising to many, however a reassuring fact to ourselves, is that Japanese and South Korean manufacturers topped the table, with Suzuki and Toyota sitting closely behind Honda in positions 2 and 3 whilst on the other end of the table sits those manufacturers associated with luxury and premium price tags.

What Car? editor Jim Holder stated, “Honda’s success in the reliability index is chiefly down to low failure rates. However, when things do go wrong, the cars are also relatively cheap to fix. Reliability is always one of the key attributes buyers look for when considering a used car purchase, so manufacturers that consistently demonstrate durability will always do well with the consumer.”

The Full Results Table

The full table of this year’s results were as follows:

1 Honda
2 Suzuki
3 Toyota
4= Chevrolet
4= Mazda
6 Ford
7 Lexus
8 Skoda
9= Hyundai
9= Nissan
9= Subaru
12= Daewoo
12= Peugeot
14 Fiat
15 Citroen
16 Smart
17 Mitsubishi
18 Kia
19 Vauxhall
20 Seat
21 Renault
22 Mini
23 Volkswagen
24 Rover
25 Volvo
26 Saab
27 Land Rover
28= BMW
28= MG
30 Jaguar
31 SsangYong
32 Mercedes-Benz
33 Chrysler
34 Audi
35 Jeep
36 Porsche
37 Bentley


What may be surprising to many is the fact that many of the widely regarded ‘premium manufacturers’ sit at the bottom of the table whilst many lesser names such as Daewoo and Skoda sit closer to the top. As far as we’re concerned, this all comes down to two factors; reliability and cost of repairs.

Reliability & Affordability Of Repairs Is The Key

We know, as an example, that genuine Honda parts can be purchased affordably to carry out repairs yourself but also the fact that when you do need to take your car to a main dealer, the bill will be far less than other bands. As an example, it has been reported that the average repair bill from Audi is over £1,000.

At the end of the day, many simply don’t have the cash to fork out on expensive repairs and, as such, the recipe for Honda’s success has been to offer affordable parts alongside first class reliability in the first instance. Of course, in order to maintain this level of reliability, it’s important you replace all parts with genuine Honda ones at all times, however as far as we’re concerned, it’s a decision which has only one choice!