I don't read the WD site as saying that it is 1 in 3 of veicles that they cover - it is just 1 in 3 - fullstop
"The DVLA figures show that the overall number of cars on UK roads has increased by 1.8% compared with 2004, rising from 25,754,000 to 26,208,000."
That is 71,000 vehicles a day breaking down - I don't think so!
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"According to Warranty Direct figures, 1 in 3 vehicles will suffer a mechanical breakdown every year"
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"According to Warranty Direct figures, 1 in 3 vehicles will suffer a mechanical breakdown every year"
Yeah this is some more misrepresentation if we're being a little pedantic. It's like those opinion polls that say "if there was a general election tomorrow 34% of the voters would vote Labour", when in fact that's just a pretty unreliable extrapolation. The problem with the WD survey as I mentioned is that there is evidence that their car pool is not representative of the total cars out there, so it's more like asking 100 chavs which way they would vote and finding that 95% of the UK isn't going to bother!!
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Perhaps due to contracts signed they cover more Renaults than BMWs and more Peugeots than Mitsubishis?
Thing is as well, regardless of make, people will tend to take out warranties on cars they don't quite trust. So even on the say Toyota table the Toyotas on their records will be skewed towards the ones that have been somewhat less reliable than the norm (possibly due to being thrashed about etc).
You get a car at 2 years old, and want to keep for 3 years, so you run it for a year. If it's given some trouble under warranty you are more likely to want to take out an extended warranty term than if it's been faultless.
This is another WhatCar-sponsored survey I have a problem with anyway. Why is it that the average age of Hyundais on their books is something like 4 and a half years old, when such an average car will still be under manufacturer's warranty? It makes no sense. When you see anomalies like that it brings the whole reliability (no pun intended) of the survey into serious question.
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1 in 3 is just mechanical breakdowns - what about electrical ones? The whole survey seems like something from Planet Zog = unreliable!
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According to Warranty Direct figures, 1 in 3 vehicles will ....
i found this statement on their website:
www.warrantydirect.co.uk/reliability_index.html?
Analysis shows that one out of every four cars suffers some degree of mechanical failure during years 4 and 5 of ownership - ironically just as the manufacturer's UK standard warranty expires.
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depends what you call a breakdown...... some years ago i called out the AA to a misfire (cos i was worried i'd do damage driving on), it was a faulty coil..... (like the Audi ones a few years back)...Drove 200 miles home, car started when i wanted it to......so not a physical breakdown, but there was something wrong with it that needed putting right.
Wife's estate had faulty catch on tailgate window........we wouldn't use that window whilst it was faulty, because at times it wouldn't lock again, which left the car insecure........had it fixed under warranty, so it would be recorded as a failure......but it didn't stop us from using the car at all.
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As said above I'm 99% sure this info is gathered from their own stats.... and as mentioned also the cars covered by them are probably those in poor condition where folks think the warranty a good backstop. What always gets me is that buying the warranty is almost more likely to make the car break down because you've blown the whole next years service budget on a piece of paper that does not do one thing to improve the car's condition.
Spend the money instead on a good service with all filters, coolant & brake fluid changes, perhaps new transmission oil and a timely canbelt change.... that will really set a car up for a few years.
Based on my own stats of a wide range of 2-15yr old cars in varying ownership I get a figure of less than 1 in 85 cars breaking down in any one year. For the cars I've personally owned the figure is about a 1 in 525 chance.
So I can prove that if you take out a warranty you are over 28 times more likely to suffer a breakdown than if you have good servicing!
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"..some degree of mechanical failure.."
What's a mechanical failure? Snapped crankshaft? Clicking door hinge? Warped cylinder head? Creaking suspension?
All the same in those stats, I'd warrant (he he).
V
PS Michael Heseltine used to say that when he read a document, he'd have in his mind "What's in it for the writer?" (or words to that effect)
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Spend the money instead on a good service with all filters, coolant & brake fluid changes, perhaps new transmission oil and a timely canbelt change.... that will really set a car up for a few years.
But that doesn't cover electrical/sensor failures which can be rather expensive and unavoidable. Not that I'm condoning using warranties as a means of servicing.
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Mike Farrow
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I've owned a wide range of cars from many manufacturers, from FSO to VW, and the only time I was literally left by the wayside involved a 13,500k Vauxhall Magnum 1800 which I bought, IIRC, around 1970.
On the way to a hi-fi exhibition in the resort where I live it suddenly began misfiring and then stopped. Of course it was on the Promenade, in November, in heavy rain, at night.
All the usual ignition checks failed to show anything amiss so, in the end, I left it and it was collected and towed home next day. The relative who worked with me on my cars (a trained mechanic) quickly found out that the camshaft neoprene belt had snapped and it was replaced.
Fortunately the engine suffered no damage, but it was my very first experience of such belts and I was never really confident in them for a long time afterwards.
Before and after I've never been let down, as I said, by any other vehicle I've owned nor the many test cars driven over more than 15 years, apart from one.
That was a Citroen XM which refused to start after we had attended a wedding. The relevant breakdown service was called and it turned out to be a battery terminal which hadn't been tightened up sufficiently.
Touch wood, it's comforting to know my VW Bora, like the two Jettas that preceded it during the period from 1992 to 2003, will continue to prove utterly reliable....:-)
Or does someone know differently.........
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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After University I was skint, I used to spend all my money on going out, and bought a couple of cars with my heart rather than my head. Had quite a few things go wrong with those two and two breakdowns (meaning breakdowns that actually left me stranded). '84 Audi 80 quattro - front wishbone snapped and wheel came off. '91 Peugeot 405 Mi16 - clutch cable snapped, could have limped it home but it was rush hour and a long way to go so I left it overnight.
So thats two breakdowns in 11 years of owning my own cars, and the Audi and Pug were in below average mechanical condition. But I've had several other mechanical failures that have not left me stranded. Had problems with the Pug gearbox, at one stage would not go into reverse (linkage problem), its finale was when the bellhousing started parting company from the engine (stripped alloy threads), so it had to go. But I just checked my records and I'm amazed I took it up to 120k miles.
Also Mk3 Golf - HGF, but drove it home and drove to the garage the next day. Was narked about that one, didn't expect it from a Golf at that mileage. Saab 9000 - HGF, drove it home 35 miles (carefully and with a big bottle of water at the ready). But that car had 198k miles on it and a non-existant service history.
My current Saab 9-3 TiD has been totally reliable in 2.5 years and 45k miles, apart from a little problem I caused myself. That was my fault not the cars fault!
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