What Car? Reliability Survey - Alfa Romeo to BMW

Alfa
• League position: 26th
• Claims per 100 vehicles: 39.4
• Average age (years): 4.05
• Average mileage: 47,068
• Average repair cost: £423
• Average time for repair (hours): 3.87

For the third year running, Alfa has one of the lowest average mileages and some of the youngest cars in this survey, yet it continues to sit near the bottom of the reliability table.

There is little improvement on its showing in last year’s survey, with just 0.1% fewer claims per 100 cars. What’s more, Alfas are among the most expensive and time-consuming cars to fix when things do go wrong, with an average repair cost of £423 and an average repair time of nearly four hours.

As far as individual models go, the 156 fares better than the 147, which only just escapes inclusion on the list of the bottom 10 cars overall.

Verdict: ** Another disappointing result from Alfa.

Audi
• League position: 28th
• Claims per 100 vehicles: 41.2
• Average age (years): 4.4
• Average mileage: 51,707
• Average repair cost: £395
• Average time for repair (hours): 2.8

This is an extremely disappointing showing from Audi, because it prides itself on the quality of its cars.

It is also a downhill slide from last year, when Audi scraped two stars overall. This year, there are, on average, more claims per 100 cars, rising from 39.4 in 2004’s survey to 41.2.

It is also taking longer for the problems to be fixed, with the average repair time going up from two-and-a-half hours to nearly three. Nearly half of all the problems reported relate to the axles and suspension, although Audi’s braking systems seem to give owners little cause for concern.

However, the good news is that the current A4 occupies a respectable ninth place in the overall table of individual models.

Verdict: * A poor performance from Audi – we hope they can build on the success of the latest A4.

BMW
• League position: 17th
• Claims per 100 vehicles: 34.0
• Average age (years): 4.64
• Average mileage: 50,786
• Average repair cost: £266
• Average time for repair (hours): 2.0

BMW has slipped from 14th place in last year’s reliability survey to 17th this year.

Owners mainly experience problems with the axle and suspension (35%), followed by the cars’ heating and ventilation systems (20%).

The good news for BMW drivers though is that the company still has one of the quickest repair times – mechanics take an average of just two hours to fix problems – and costs have stayed down. The average repair cost is one of the lowest in this year’s survey at £266.

Despite the generally poor overall rating, BMW has four models in the top 25, including the 3 Series Compact (’94-’01), which sits in 15th place.

Verdict: ** A disappointing performance overall, but repair costs and times remain impressively low.

Click here to see how the manufacturers compare.

Click here for top 10 most reliable models.

Click here for top 10 least reliable models.