What brand of car has the least issues?
Not all cars are created equal, and for this very reason, you will find that some brands are more reliable than others. No one wants a vehicle that has the potential to leave them stranded next to the road, but this is an inherent risk with all cars. Mitigating this risk is always front of mind.
Reliability is an attribute that everyone looks for in a vehicle. You would have to be a masochist not to. Modern cars are complex machines and thousands of components all have to work in unison to achieve the desired effect. It goes without saying that something is bound to go wrong at some stage but delaying the inevitable for as long as possible is something that everyone desires.
Related: Top Used Kia models ranked by reliability
This quest for reliability is global and U.S. firm J.D. Power is the leader in reliability surveys and with more than 34 years of experience in the field, is able to provide us with the necessary insight into consumer-based reliability surveys. The latest report looks at vehicles produced in 2020 and accounts for the number of problems encountered after three years of ownership. Basing their study on the number of problems encountered from the first 90 days to the three-year mark, J.D. Power is able to correlate and assess the number of problems per 100 (pp100) vehicles sold.
Their 2023 study found that Lexus is the most reliable brand with the fewest number of problems per 100 in the last three years, achieving a figure of 133 pp100, considerably lower than the industry average of 186 pp100. The most reliable non-premium brand is Kia, registering a score of 152 and placing third overall.
Further insight into the results
Diving deeper into the findings, we see that batteries, navigation systems, Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, and voice recognition faults are the most prevalent. As technology improves, certain features stop functioning as intended. This is bound to happen as ancillaries receive software updates and the vehicle no longer communicates as intended. The navigation issues mainly stem from outdated maps.
The most reliable models in both the premium and non-premium segments hailed from the Toyota Motor Corporation, the Lexus RX and the Toyota C-HR. The most improved brands are Volvo, Ram, and Nissan.
It's worth noting that this study takes into account all brands sold in the U.S.A. and excludes brands that we may see locally. It also includes brands that are not available in South Africa. With a wide variety of manufacturing plants across the globe contributing to our local market, it's understandable that there may be some variation in local quality and reliability. The J.D. Power Vehicle Dependability Study (VDS) is thus best used as a guideline only.
Here's how the various brands fared in the recent study.
