German cars are among the most likely to develop faults or break down, according to a survey of owners published today. Audi, BMW and Volkswagen were all rated "poor" for reliability in the study by Britain's Consumers' Association.
In contrast, Japanese and Korean cars scored among the highest with drivers.
The survey found money doesn't always buy trouble-free motoring, with expensive models among the least reliable. Bottom of the pile for the second year running was Audi's sporty TT model - of 43 owners with cars up to two years old, 21 per cent had broken down in the past 12 months.
Second to last was the Mercedes Benz E-class, with 16 per cent of the 44 examples in the survey needing attention in the past year.
Among the most reliable cars was Hyundai's supermini Getz. None of the 30 in the survey had broken down in the past year.
The same was true for MG's ZT and ZT-T, Mazda's 323 and Toyota's Corolla and Corolla Verso models. Close behind, with 99 per cent reliability, were the Honda Civic, CR-V and Jazz, plus the Mazda 6, and Peugeot 406 and 406 Coupe.
The Consumers' Association gathered information on 34,277 cars up to eight years old from readers of its magazine Which? Owners were asked to comment on breakdowns, faults or "niggles" in the past 12 months.
Marques which dropped from "average" last year to "poor" this time were: Audi, BMW, Chrysler, Daewoo and Saab. They joined Citroën, Fiat, Land Rover, Peugeot, Renault, Rover, Vauxhall and VW already in the bottom category.
The marques ranked as "excellent" for reliability this year were: Honda, Hyundai, Lexus, Mazda, Toyota and Suzuki which moved up from "good" in last year's survey.
"German cars have always been expensive," says Malcolm Coles, editor of Which?, "but our survey reveals a worrying drop in reliability that makes them look distinctly over-priced.
"Audi, BMW and VW may be the choice of more badge-conscious buyers, but owners of Japanese cars are far less likely to spend time on the hard shoulder or face hefty garage bills."
Duncan Forrester, BMW's media relations manager, said: "It's an interesting survey and one that comes out every year. The findings this year, based on 1,388 BMW cars, doesn't correlate with with our experience.
"Our history, which relates to 100 per cent BMW cars, doesn't suggest that reliability and break-downs are getting worse. On the contrary, we find it's improving quite considerably."
Paul Buckett, VW's public relations chief, also questioned the findings: "The sample size for the survey is very small. It's also very curious to us that the VW Bora is classed near the top for reliability and the Golf, which is technically almost identical, is low down."
A Mercedes spokesman felt the findings contradict those from other quality reports elsewhere.
Audi said its reliability figures have been "temporarily low due to an exceptional and unique ignition coil problem which was rectified for production of cars during 2003.
"The widely used 1.8 T engine is one of the affected units, and as it powers all but two TT models and several A4 versions has caused a specific downturn for these cars." Reliability levels for current Audi models normally falls very close to, or better than, the 94 per cent average of the most recent Which? report, it said - PA