Can You Still Trust Car Reliability Surveys?

If you follow the automotive world, you see the same lists popping up every year. The most reliable cars of the year, the best brands according to owners, or the cars with the fewest problems.

Often, the same brands are at the top, while brands like Alfa Romeo, Jaguar, or Land Rover end up at the bottom. It is tempting to draw immediate conclusions from this, but after working in the automotive industry for over 25 years, I look at it differently.

Not all studies are nonsense

That does not mean all those studies are nonsense. On the contrary, they can certainly contain valuable information. Still, I believe you should always look at how such a study is conducted.

Some studies are based on surveys of car owners, while others are carried out by commercial research firms that sell their extensive reports to car manufacturers. Furthermore, manufacturers often pay to be allowed to use an award they have received in their advertising. That does not automatically make the results unreliable, but it does show that commercial interests are at play.

In addition, a reliability study does not always say what people think it says. In many studies, a frozen navigation system counts just as heavily as a faulty gearbox. A software bug that is resolved during a maintenance visit with an update is given the same weight as a costly engine repair. In my opinion, that does not provide a fair picture of a car's actual reliability.

Owner experience often differs from study results

What strikes me most in practice is that the experiences of owners are often very different from what the rankings suggest. I regularly speak to people who have been driving an Alfa Romeo or Jaguar for years with great pleasure and have hardly had any problems. Of course, less positive experiences exist, just as they do with BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, or Volvo. No brand is completely free of problems.

Nevertheless, some studies create the impression that certain brands are structurally poor, while daily practice is much more nuanced. I also notice that national studies sometimes show striking results. In Germany, German brands regularly score exceptionally well. That does not have to be wrong, but it does show how important it is to compare multiple sources.

That is why I personally attach great value to independent data from organizations like TÜV and DEKRA, which base their reports on millions of technical inspections. The breakdown statistics from the ADAC also provide an interesting picture of cars that actually end up stranded on the side of the road. Such data often tells you more than just the opinion of a group of respondents.

Car manufacturers are increasingly using the same technology

Perhaps the biggest change of the last twenty years is that car manufacturers are increasingly using the same technology. Many people still think that every brand develops almost all its own parts, but the reality is very different. Behind the scenes, almost every manufacturer works with the same large international suppliers.

Take Bosch, for example. This German company supplies injection systems, sensors, electronics, and engine management to a large part of the European automotive industry, among other things. ZF develops gearboxes that you will find in BMW, Jaguar, Alfa Romeo, Maserati, Audi, and many other brands.

Continental supplies braking systems, electronics, and safety systems. Valeo develops lighting, air conditioning, and electronic components, among other things. Hella, now part of the Forvia Group, supplies high-quality lighting and electronics to almost all major European brands.

Forvia itself is perhaps one of the best examples. This French supplier produces complete dashboards, interior parts, and electronic systems for brands like Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, and Alfa Romeo. The dashboard for which an Audi is often praised for its finish comes from the same factory and the same supplier as interior parts for an Alfa Romeo Giulia. That shows how intertwined the modern automotive industry has become.

Maintenance is more important than the logo on the hood

That is precisely why I believe less and less in the claim that one European premium brand is structurally better built than another. The differences have simply become much smaller. Manufacturers use the same knowledge, the same production techniques, and often even exactly the same parts.

Every brand has its own character, tuning, and design philosophy, of course, but the foundations often come from the same suppliers. Ultimately, maintenance has a much greater impact on a car's reliability.

A modern engine requires high-quality oil that is changed on time. Software is becoming increasingly important and must also be updated regularly. Proper tire pressure, quality parts, and using the recommended fuel may seem like minor details, but they make a huge difference in the long run. Many expensive repairs don't happen because a car was poorly built, but because maintenance was delayed or skipped entirely.

I have seen cars with over 300,000 kilometers on the clock that still run without issues because they were perfectly maintained from day one. At the same time, I have seen cars with less than 100,000 kilometers that developed major technical problems because maintenance was neglected or the wrong parts were used to save money. For me, this confirms time and again that maintenance is often more important than the logo on the hood.

Carvendo's perspective on reliability surveys

At Carvendo, we believe that there really aren't any bad cars being built these days. Of course, every brand has had a less successful engine or a model with teething problems at some point, but the general quality of modern cars is at a level we barely thought possible twenty years ago. That is why we look beyond a ranking in a reliability survey. We prefer to look at how a car has been maintained, whether the service history is complete, whether software updates have been performed, and how carefully a previous owner treated the car.

We are convinced that this says much more about the reliability of a used car than an annual list that lumps dozens of different types of complaints together.

A well-maintained Alfa Romeo, Jaguar, or Peugeot can run trouble-free for years. Just as a poorly maintained BMW, Mercedes-Benz, or Toyota can cause a lot of problems. Ultimately, it is not just the manufacturer that makes the difference, but above all the way a car has been treated throughout its life.

That is exactly how we look at cars at Carvendo. Not through the lens of marketing or rankings, but with common sense, practical experience, and a passion for the trade. Because in the end, the most reliable car is often not the one at the top of a survey, but the one that has been cared for with attention and diligence for years.