10 Most Reliable Car Brands Driving the Automobile Industry in 2014 THE BEST THE INDUSTRY HAS TO OFFER A cars cost, mileage, horsepower and cargo space matter a bit less if theyre up on a lift in a garage somewhere. Reliability isnt some marketing term. It matters. Its the empirical measure of how often an automobile model breaks down, its frequent problems and how much all of that is going to cost you in time and repairs. For every driver who relies on a car to get to work, move family around and otherwise travel great distances, reliability is key. Car repair data site CarMD just released its Vehicle Health Index reliability ratings and ranked the vehicles with the least combined “check engine” repairs and costs. It culled repair data from 40,400 specific repairs performed on model year 2004 to 2014 vehicles from Oct. 1, 2013, to Sept. 30 of this year. CarMD ranked the Top 100 vehicles overall, top vehicles by category and the most common repairs by make. While we realize the inherent value of the vehicle list, it seemed somewhat less valuable to feature a Top 10 that included four Toyotas, two Hondas, two Kias and two Hyundais. Instead, we looked at the manufacturer rankings and saw just how much repairs for each automakers vehicles cost, how often theyre in the shop, what kind of problems are most common and which represents your best bet when it comes time to buy – regardless of model year. The following 10 automakers represent the best the industry has to offer, but even this list puts a lot of distance between those stuck in traffic and those at the head of the pack: BMW Average repair costs: $355.08 Index rating: 3 BMW has exactly one car in CarMDs Top 100 (the 2011 535 at No. 78) and is the only luxury automaker on the list. It dropped off last year, when Mitsubishi and Volkswagen edged it out, but ranked No. 3 as recently as 2012. Even Toyota and Hondas midsize cars outsell BMWs entire lineup in the U.S., but thats kind of the point, isnt it? Also, despite some wretched performance bythe 2004 BMW 545 and 2004 BMW 745, which rank in the bottom 10% of all cars sold within the past decade, BMW shows reliability thats become all too rare in the luxury sector. Even better, its most common “check engine light” repair — Inspect for Vacuum Leak at 13.3% of all maintenance — costs $115.52 to fix, on average. Compared with some of the fixes on this list, thats a bargain. MAZDA Average repair costs: $302.92 Index rating: 2.64 Also missing from the list last year, Mazda stepped up by posting the lowest average repair cost of any automaker listed. Despite this, only the 2010 Mazda3 made the Top 100 for reliability (No. 66). The 2009 Mazda 3 just missed the cut at No. 111, but it helps that Mazdas most frequent repair — loose fuel cap at 8.66% — costs nothing to fix. Replacing the vehicles catalytic converter with one thats up to current standards accounts for 8.23% of all repairs and adds up to nearly $1,000, though. Ouch.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Dec 2014 07:01:46 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015