What Car Reliability Survey

[Tripletrouble]

And the most reliable and unreliable luxury cars are...... (drum roll)...........

LUXURY CARS - 91.5% OVERALL

MOST RELIABLE
1. BMW 5 Series (2010-2017) - 96.7%
2. Mercedes E-Class (2009-2016) - 96.1%
3. BMW 5 Series (2017-on) - 95.2%


LEAST RELIABLE
1. Audi A6 (2011-2018) - 70.6%
2. Jaguar XJ (2010-on) - 86.6%
3. Volvo S90 & V90 (2016-on) - 90.7%

That rating for our car is lower than Range Rover scored and one of the lowest recorded in the entire survey.

[nevbadger99]

Odd result, I have put a zillion miles on all my Audis until I stopped going anywhere recently, very little trouble.

[Tripletrouble]

I've had 3 clutch replacements, wheel bearing failure at 25k miles, squeaky drivers seat but in fairness no breakdowns with my last A6, brake discs warping and alloy wheels corroding on this one. Plus the soot in the engine bay but other than that it's been fine.
I won't be having another though reading about the gremlins in the C8.

[johnsimcox]

What I find interesting is that 14% of the faults were related to the battery, and I expect that the high rating may be people finding that the battery in modern stop-start cars simply does not last as long as it did in older cars. Also as with all of these types of survey they never actually tell you how many respondents of each individual model they had. At the luxury end it will be much lower than in some other segments and therefore the percentages can be influenced dramatically by a small change in responses. If I look at my own experiences of the C7 (2012 and 2015 Avants) On the 2012 I had to have the load cover replaced because the locking mechanism failed and I also had the fuel filler flap jam. On the 2015 I had the fuel filler jam and the Adblue system went into panic mode but ultimately simply needed to be recalibrated. Enough to put me off the car, no. Currently have a C8 and whist there are definitely some bugs in the software this does not seem to be restricted to Audi (or even the wider Volkswagen Group)

[bluezie]

So far my 2014 3.0TDI Quattro has been the most reliable vehicle I've owned, only 2 faults-

The powered tailgate has had a few issues with opening and closing, when I looked into it, it seems this was a botched repair, as things were loose on both motors. Once I'd sorted this it's been ok since, although it does make a loud cracking sound when closing sometimes, I think the mechanism got damaged when loose, but it's done 2 or 3 years like it, and gets opened and closed about 20 times every day.

Twice the ABS has shown a fault with the N/S front sensor reporting erratic signals, once was when driving in deep snow, but both times, clearing the fault with VCDS made it go away long term. I gather this is a known fault with water ingress into the wiring somewhere near the wheel arch, but haven't found out exactly where, so not bothered to look into it.

Apart from that, everything in the cabin works, the CDUD 3.0TDI engineseems bullet proof, all the earlier injector, swirl flap and camchain issues have been sorted, and the S-Tronic box works perfectly. The DPF has coped with lots of 2 mile short journeys without grumbling, and last time I checked the ash level, it was very low, showing this wasn't likely to be full until mega miles, hopefully outlast the car's lifetime. The start / stop battery is now coming up 7 years old, and showing no signs of giving up yet!
With 245BHP on tap, it goes well, and tows a horse box like it doesn't exist- It's a keeper!

[lynalldiscovery]

I run Land rovers, and have done for many years, some old (current daily 14yrs old) and some very old (1959 and a 1993) all have been good cars.
The wife runs Audis/Mercs/Minis/Bmws and again all have been good cars, and much easier on the pocket than the Land Rovers!
None new, some of the lrs very old, the secret is to look after them, ie service them before time, and investigate funny noises before they let you down.

Most surveys only tell you what THEY want to tell you.

[Whippy53]

I run Land rovers, and have done for many years, some old (current daily 14yrs old) and some very old (1959 and a 1993) all have been good cars.
The wife runs Audis/Mercs/Minis/Bmws and again all have been good cars, and much easier on the pocket than the Land Rovers!
None new, some of the lrs very old, the secret is to look after them, ie service them before time, and investigate funny noises before they let you down.

Most surveys only tell you what THEY want to tell you.

What? The wives?

[RhysoTDI]

My A6 has been a mixed bag in the 4 and a half years I’ve owned it
Had one injector fail
replaced the rocker cover gaskets
replaced the front parking camera
rear wiper motor
sunroof leaked

For me it’s the niggly items that have spoilt my ownership and why on Tuesday the A6 will be leaving me.