Auto Express driver power

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Mon 5 May 2014 12:12
Auto Express driver power - Snakey

Although I know I'm not part of the toyota love-in that goes on here sometimes, I notice they are now 17th in the top manfacturers according to the Auto Express survey. Perhaps like VW, the halo is starting to slip a bit and I'm not the only one who found their customer service non existent?

I'm not sure what manfacturer to try next - I think BMW and Merc are one of the few I haven't tried yet!

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Mon 5 May 2014 12:57
Auto Express driver power - Auristocrat

Toyota weren't alone in dropping down the manufacturer tables - all of the other Japanese manufacturers did. Nissan had a larger drop than Toyota (10 places to 22nd), whilst Suzuki grabbed the last place at 33.

Edited by Auristocrat on 05/05/2014 at 12:57

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Mon 5 May 2014 15:14
Auto Express driver power - coopshere
I doubt the survey was very scientific in that only people who read the magazine will respond followed only by those readers who could be bothered.

Bottom line is unless you use the models you will never know how good or bad they are and even then you may have a Friday afternoon lemon which is not representative of the model as a whole.

Not scientific but the best possible guide may be to look at the various model forums and judge how many on there have problems, some of the so called premium models do not seem to fare so well when you use this method.
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Mon 5 May 2014 17:36
Auto Express driver power - NARU

My 7-year old Toyota has just needed its first repair (a leaking aircon pipe). Shocking really! Especially as its soon going to need its first set of brake pads.

The most reliable car I've ever owned, by a long shot. And the annual services are some of the cheapest too.

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Mon 5 May 2014 17:58
Auto Express driver power - madf

My eleven year old Yaris needed a new battery last year. It was its first replacement part apart from consumables...

My son's 13 year old Yaris has done over 130k miles and is on its original engine drivetrain and suspension... It too needed its first new battery - this year

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Mon 5 May 2014 19:29
Auto Express driver power - Avant

A weakness of thisn sort of survey is that sample sizes will vary hugely from car to car. Tye MG6 scored very highly, but I would imagine that only a handful of owners contributed.

I'm sure there were more people than that who responded about Octavia mark 3s, as I did - but it wasn't included in the survey, perhaps because it's too new. I won't bother to do the survey next time.

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Mon 5 May 2014 19:33
Auto Express driver power - Snakey

I would like to see these sort of surveys balanced on the mileage that people have covered in their cars. I'm sure someone who does 4000 miles a year in their toyota aygo will thinks its great, but the mondeo driver clocking up 30000 miles might notice the faults/annoyances more.

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Mon 5 May 2014 21:37
Auto Express driver power - coopshere
They can only be balanced if you get a response from all owners any thing short of that will give a false result of true reliability and satisfaction. One of the major problems is the reliance on percentage based figures. Two out of a hundred is a relatively small percentage figure whereas two out of ten is a substantially different percentage. These surveys are there to fill space in a magazine or, if used by a manufacturer, to give themselves a better looking product than they actually have. Treat them all with scepticism, research and try the product yourself if you want a true picture.
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Mon 5 May 2014 21:50
Auto Express driver power - daveyjp
We covered 3-4000 a year in our Aygo, after 6 years it was far from great and showing the fact the french had an input.
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Mon 5 May 2014 23:35
Auto Express driver power - Auristocrat

The issue with including the typical Mondeo (or nowadays BMW 3-series driver) driver doing 30,000 a year, is that the majority of these will be company car users, who, although they may notice more faults/annoyances, won't have the time or inclination to correct the faults/annoyances as it isn't their car, and the priority would be to continue using it for business until something breaks.

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Wed 7 May 2014 00:09
Auto Express driver power - xtrailman

Best thing to do is itemise your own priorities from the results and create your own list.

I want reliability, good performance, and good handling. I'm not interested in whether someone doesn't like his dealer, or their service chargers, as mine may be completely different.

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