Car warranty provider Warrantywise has named the UK’s least reliable car companies, and the published data suggests that expensive premium cars have the highest repair frequency and repair costs.
Warrantywise, which is also one of The Car Expert’s commercial partners, collected the data from 131,000 UK warranty repair claims on vehicles up to ten years old – excluding very low volume models. This is unlike many consumer reliability reports, which use owner-reported information from incentivised surveys and can be far less reliable.
The data is then used to generate a reliability score for each brand, and the brands are then ranked in the Warrantywise reliability index. These rankings name Porsche as the least reliable car brand for UK motorists, followed by Tata-owned sister brands Land Rover and Jaguar.
Italian marque Alfa Romeo also scored poorly, followed by the upmarket German brands Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, despite the perception of their high build quality. Vauxhall and Volvo also feature in this unfavourable top ten, followed by Mitsubishi, which has now pulled out of the UK market after several years of abysmal review scores and declining sales.
Warrantywise has also published the rankings at the top of its reliability index, which named mainstream Japanese brands Honda, Toyota and Suzuki as the most reliable manufacturers.
The UK’s ten least reliable car brands 2022
| Ranking | Brand | Reliability score |
| 1 | Porsche | 35 |
| 2 | Land Rover | 40 |
| 3 | Jaguar | 48 |
| 4 | Alfa Romeo | 52 |
| 5 | Audi | 59 |
| 6 | BMW | 60 |
| 7 | Mercedes-Benz | 60 |
| 8 | Vauxhall | 68 |
| 9 | Volvo | 69 |
| 10 | Mitsubishi | 69 |
These unreliability rankings are not all that surprising. Land Rover, in particular, has long been known for the questionable reliability of their cars, and this news follows the Warrantywise car reliability rankings released earlier this year, which awarded the last-generation Range Rover the unflattering title of most unreliable used car in the UK.
This Warrantywise report correlates with other reliability surveys and reports conducted over the years, as well as The Car Expert’s own data provided for our Expert Rating Index by MotorEasy, which reinforces the findings in this report.
When on the lookout for their next car, Warrantywise CEO Lawrence Whittaker advises consumers to keep in mind that “premium prices really do make for premium costs.”
“With more technology in high-end cars than ever before, we suppose it’s only natural that they require a bit more TLC than normal.”
- Warrantywise has a special car warranty offer for The Car Expert readers*
- More car buying advice and analysis from The Car Expert
More car warranty information
*Warrantywise is a commercial partner of The Car Expert. If you click through to its website and/or proceed to purchase a used car warranty, we may receive a small commission. This does not affect the price you pay.
