Nottm_S2

I saw this on the news, its what is missed by new car reviews in the press imo

The all conquering Renault Megane, unsurprisingly below par: http://good-garage-guide.honestjohn....renault/megane

vs the civic (which is krap imho), a better ownership proposition: http://good-garage-guide.honestjohn....ot/honda/civic

Golf seems ok: http://good-garage-guide.honestjohn....olkswagen/golf

As an ownership proposition i had a citroen once and it was shyte, always had something wrong with it, depreciated like a stone, epnsive to service....

Do french cars make any sense at all? Cheap to buy, costly to run i guess sums it up

LTB

Or an unreliable Lotus even....

http://good-garage-guide.honestjohn....ot/lotus/elise

Dracoro

I think the site, although useful to a degree, doesn't necessarily reflect reliability without further reading so don't take the %age as gospel.

Failing for worn brakes, tyres, lights (arguably) etc. are just general maintenance. Stuff like this the more "nice" the car is, the more likely the owner is to keep on top of it rather than waiting for MOT time.

Failing on stuff like suspension, steering, fuel/exhausts, body/structure etc. paints a better picture about how well built/reliable the cars are.

That all said, it's no surprise to me that the French are in the low/mid 50s, the Germans in the low/mid 60s and the Japanese in the high 60s/low 70s. There has to be a pattern here....... But apparently (according to many devotees on certain car forums), the French/Italian crap is all now a "myth"

GREGSTERWIZ

Hmmm...........french cars ?

I owned a Citroen Saxo VTS 15 years ago. Covered 45k miles in it and absolutely nothing went wrong.

I've had experience of Honda's "legendary reliability". It's non existant these days.

I recently owned a Ford Focus ST. Cracking car despite the Ford badge. Again, nothing went wrong with it

Currently running a Renault Clio RS200 (built by RenaultSport on a different production line) and to be honest it's just the same build quality wise as every other comparable make/ model in its price range

And a much better drive that the lard arse Civic Type R FN2 which I've also owned and didn't rate at all.

m1bjr

Amusing.

I think the posted link says more about the type of owners and how THEY maintian cars, rather than the marque itself.
Think about who you see driving a little ropey Megane to school daily. Or that 'dizzy bird' in customer services...

Honda always tops the reliability polls, whilst Land Rover has spent some ten years at the very bottom.
But which are the big sellers of the two now, and percieved unilaterally as high end luxury motoring? JLR I would guess.

Top of the heap now are the Koreans.

Nottm_S2

My experience with this Honda has been pretty faultless in approaching 10 years.

But having said that we put 95k on a vec diesel with minimal maintenance and it only then began to roost . proper abused.

the one and only citroen i had was shite, in 12 months it developed chronic wind noise, ate 2 sets of discs and the wind bent the door onto the wing. I wouldn't buy french again, it felt flimsy. looked at those megane coupes when we bought the golf, they did feel like my old citroen. i swear you could demolish them by hand

GREGSTERWIZ

The thing is though nothing is built to last these days and everything is built to a price

Cars are also very complicated, maybe needlessly so, especially the electrictronics

Every car has its faults.

It doesn't really matter if you perceive the car brand as a quality item. It will break. Sooner or later.

The worst car I've had experience of lately for reliability issues is a (very expensive) Audi.

mikey k

And the top car is

Dracoro

Of course, everyone has anecdotes about how their (or friend/family) French cars was OK and their jap cars were crap. Now, what would be useful to get a real picture, is some more comprehensive stats, maybe in the form of MOT failures

Obviously it can't be taken as gospel, but alongside these MOT stats, warranty stats, JDP/TG/etc surveys, anecdotes, AA/RAC stats and so on, you begin to paint a picture of how reliable given cars are.

Now, of course, some French cars are great and some Jap cars are crap, however when people seem to think it's one big conspiracy, it just comes over that they are in denial. (this is not directed at anyone on this thread BTW).

Actually, speaking of anecdotes, I had a mate who worked for a car leasing company and the worse for reliability (this is obviously for new/nearly new cars rather than older ones) was Mitsubishi so I guess not *all* Jap cars are reliable. And another anecdote, when I had to call out the roadside assistance guys when the alarm on my S2000 decided to really play up whilst away from home, he said he rarely ever got call outs for Hondas.

Nick Graves

Drac,

Don't bring rationality & facts into it! Some of JD Power's surveys seem a little odd (owner satisfaction is a mix of subjectivity and objectivity) but it's the closest we've got to a statistical analysis.

Another source is people who've actually worked on the things; Misubishi used to mount camshafts directly into the head without bearing shells, which was so not good an idea. I still distrust their engineering today - and not just because wheels fly off Fusos.

I think French cars got a good reputation purely because in the 1970s, they were a lot less shit than British ones. It was only by a stroke of luck we got the Honda Ballade and not an R18 to be the future of the UK car industry!

The only Reno I'd not distrust would be a badge-engineered Samsung. And those are pretty hideous.