The only non-Japanese makes to achieve a top ten place were Skoda, Kia and Mini, in eighth, ninth and 10th respectively. Skoda builds most of its cars in the Czech Republic, while Kia is Malaysian, and Mini, of course, builds many of the models, which would have been included in the survey, in Cowley, just outside Oxford.
The survey used data taken from Warranty Direct’s 50,000 ‘live’ policies, which cover cars between three and 10 years old. There was bad news for British car-makers in the survey, as out of the 32 car makes it covered, four were British – with Land Rover faring the worst of all, with MG, Vauxhall and Rover also in the bottom 10, at fifth, sixth and ninth lowest-ranked respectively.
Just one in 14 (seven per cent) of Hondas covered by Warranty Direct policies needed attention during 2009, the survey found, while more than half (53 per cent) of Land Rovers subject to such cover had to be returned for repairs. Honda’s top place was its fifth in a row in this survey.
The cars studied were all between three and 10 years old, which is the age range of most of the used cars bought in the UK. Buying a used car and arranging used car finance are undertakings which must be entered into seriously, so polls such as this often reflect the types of cars which are in most demand as used buys. When arranging bad credit car finance, the car itself can often be taken as security for the loan, so more reliable makes are always considered to be a wise buy. While many of these can be hard to find, it is always worth a buyer persisting if they have set their heart of owning a particular make, and not being too disappointed if what they are looking for seems to be like a needle in a haystack.
