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Honda CR-V climbs to top of most reliable 4x4 models
publication date: Jan 6, 2010
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author/source: Robin Roberts
Warranty Direct has revealed the most and least reliable pre-owned 4x4 and SUV cars on the market.
Audi’s A6 Allroad fared worst, with more than half recording a fault in
a typical year. A third of those problems reported were
suspension-related.
At the other end of the scale, Honda’s CR-V was revealed as the
off-roader least likely to let you down, followed by the Suzuki Grand
Vitara and Toyota’s RAV4. Mitsubishi and Kia make it a clean sweep for
Far Eastern manufacturers in the top five.
The Volkswagen Touareg, despite winning the 2009 running
of the famously tough Dakar at the hands of South African Giniel de
Villiers, didn’t transfer its success to Warranty Direct’s study,
finishing fourth from bottom with a quarter of faults down to
electrical gremlins.
Warranty Direct’s study used its unique Reliability
Index , which takes into account how often
vehicles break down, average repair cost and time spent in the garage
to calculate its overall reliability. The lower the Reliability Index
number, the more reliable the car. |  | | The highest-placed European car is the newer incarnation
of perennial 4x4 favourite, Land Rover’s Freelander, which has
traditionally fared badly in Warranty Direct’s studies.
Warranty
Direct’s Duncan McClure Fisher said, “It’s promising to see improvement
from Land Rover’s flagship model, but it’s telling that the bottom 10
is dominated by European cars, and the top of the list populated
largely by Japanese vehicles, which still hold sway overall. The
biggest surprise must surely be the poor performance of the XC90. It’s
not what you’d expect from a manufacturer with Volvo’s reputation, but
I’m signing cheques every day on XC90 repairs.”
With an average
repair cost of £595.58, the Mitsubishi Shogun (00-07) is the most
expensive to fix but thankfully has a low incidence rate, with just
under 8pc per year suffering a glitch.
Meanwhile, a third of
Nissan’s X-Trail problems are down to cooling and heating issues while
almost 60pc of enforced garage visits for Volvo XC-70 owners are due to
suspension breakages.
The analysis is based on Warranty Direct’s database of 150,000 policies on cars between three and eight years old. |
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