A SURVEY of nearly one million cars has confirmed the reputation of Japanese models as the most reliable on the market.

Honda has taken the top honours for the second year running in a reliability survey carried out by Fleet News, the automotive newspaper for the company car industry.

The firm has taken the overall title of most reliable supplier to leasing firms for 2006 and the Honda Accord has secured the title as the most reliable model by a significant margin over its rivals.

The Honda Civic took fifth place.

Toyota retains the second place in the manufacturer league table that it secured last year and the Avensis also retains its 2nd position in the model table.

Audi enjoyed a strong showing this year, taking third place, a jump of two places compared to last year’s table. It also had two cars in the top 10 most reliable models, with the A4 in third place and the A3 in eighth.

BMW retains fourth place, while Volkwagen moves up from eighth to fifth and Ford from ninth to sixth.

Mazda is seventh this year, down from third in 2005, while Lexus enters the table for the first time in eighth. The final two places for Britain’s most reliable brands are taken by Vauxhall (9th) and Mercedes-Benz (10th).

The table of most reliable models includes many company car favourites, such as the BMW 3-series, in seventh, Ford Focus, in ninth and Volkswagen Passat, in 10th.

This is the fifth year of the reliability survey and this year’s sample is one of the biggest on record, with 987,000 vehicles covered in the manufacturer survey and 918,000 vehicles covered in the model survey.

Only multi-marque leasing companies were included in the survey, covering the most reliable cars, according to the number of breakdowns per 100 of each type of model on their fleet.

Points were awarded according to the number of times brands or models appeared in the tables supplied by the leasing firms and for the position in which they were placed.

Most reliable manufacturers

1 Honda
2 Toyota
3 Audi
4 BMW
5 Volkswagen
6 Ford
7 Mazda
8 Lexus
9 Vauxhall
10 Mercedes-Benz

  • Sample: 987,000 vehicles

    Most reliable models

    1. Honda Accord
    2. Toyota Avensis
    3. Audi A4
    4. Lexus IS
    5. Honda Civic
    6. Toyota Corolla
    7. BMW 3-series
    8. Audi A3
    9. Ford Focus
    10. Volkwagen Passat

  • Sample: 918,000 vehicles

    This and other articles based on exclusive research can be found in our FN50 report, Fleet News’ annual analysis of the UK contract hire and leasing industry.

    The report was written by John Maslen (john.maslen@emap.com, 01733 468307).

    To order a copy visit our Supplements section.