Honda Tops Which? Magazine Car Reliability Survey

Honda is among just seven car brands to be rated "Best" in Which? magazine’s annual car reliability survey published today, 7 August. Furthermore, both the British-built Honda Accord and Japanese-built Jazz models achieved a 100% breakdown free record, a feat achieved by just five other car models.

Other Honda models also performed exceptionally well in the survey, with the current Civic and CR-V both achieving 99% reliability, and the previous model CR-V achieving 98%.

These results are further testimony to the quality of Honda’s Swindon-built models, since the Accord, Civic and current CR-V models featured in the survey are all built at the company’s Wiltshire plant.

The survey looked at breakdowns (or failures to start) experienced over a 12 month period by owners of cars up to two years old. Some 33,000 Which? members took part in the survey, including 1707 owners of Honda cars less than two years old.

Overall, Which? found that around one in 20 new cars were likely to have broken down during the last year, with the worst performing model having a breakdown rate of one in four. Asian brands predominantly occupied the "Best" category (smart was the sole European representative), while the "Poor" category was dominated by French, German, Italian, British and Swedish marques.

Honda’s feat represents a continued improvement over the previous year’s result. In 2002 all of the Honda models were featured in the "winners" area of the survey and exceeded the industry average 94% reliability score. The Honda HR-V was among just seven cars to achieve a 100% breakdown free reliability. Other scores were Civic (new) – 99%, CR-V (old) – 98%, Accord (new) – 97% and Civic (mid) – 97%.

Which? magazine’s new car reliability survey was published, 7 August, with the full results on 138 different car models to be published in October’s Which Car? 2003/04 issue.

* Which? magazine August 2003 issue, published by the Consumers’ Association. The publication is entirely independent and aims to help consumers choose the best goods and services – and avoid the worst.