25 most unreliable family cars

Hatchback family cars are the bread and butter of the car world. They may not be as stylish as the latest coupé SUVs but they are practical, roomy and relatively frugal. On top of that, if you want one that won't leave you stranded at the roadside or cost you a fortune in repair bills, you'll need to pick a reliable model.   

That’s where the What Car? Reliability Survey can help. We run it each year, in association with MotorEasy, to gain real-life information from thousands of drivers about just how dependable their cars have been. For the latest survey, we got the low-down from 24,927 car owners who gave us information on 248 models from 32 brands. 

As well as asking owners if their car had suffered any faults in the past two years, we also got them to tell us how long each problem kept the car off the road for and, crucially, how much it cost to repair. These last two pieces of information were used to create a unique reliability rating, allowing us to rank the models.

Here, we look at the data for family cars aged up to five years old. 

The 2023 What Car? Reliability Survey is open – tell us about your car here