The most reliable car brands - and the least

We reveal who builds the most and least dependable cars up to five years old, based on the experiences of more than 16,000 owners...

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Whether you’re a serial switcher and go for a different brand every time you renew your car, or a stalwart loyalist who sticks with the same make through the decades, you probably have good reasons why you pick certain brands and avoid others.

Reliability is one of the most important factors to many car buyers, and to help inform your choices we conduct our annual What Car? Reliability survey in association with MotorEasy.

To find out which are the most dependable brands, and which are most likely to let you down, we asked more than 16,000 readers if their cars went wrong in the previous 12 months and, if they did, how severely, and how much they cost them in repairs.

Here we take a deep dive into the data to reveal the most and least reliable car brands for cars aged up to five years old. While most lived up to their reputations – good and bad – there were also some big surprises.