Well these figures are only on cars which have a warranty with Warranty Direct. And they also focus on which areas of the cars are responsible for the most failures, the percentage of the models which require repair etc so it can give us a reasonable idea. Nobody will be surprised at the top ten, when people come on here asking for reliable cars we all say Japanese or Korean. To see the amount of failures on Mercedes is quite shocking, for cars costing so much you do expect it to be reasonably well put together. The SL is the worst offender though.

What was nice to see is the Peugeot 406 ranked 6th on reliability for family cars despite going out of production in 2004. Of course you could say ones still on the road have already had major problems fixed by now.

The problem with such surveys is that they concentrate on repair cost, not reliability - it's not unreasonable to expect a £60,000 car to cost 3x the repair cost of a £20,000 car if they both have the same reliability.

Also, they dont take into account the demographic of people who buy the cars. Anyone buying a £30K Merc or Audi is prbably planning to do some serious driving like myself who does around 20K per year. A lot of Japanese cars are bought by people who may be retired and do 5-6K per years and keep the cars wrapped in cotton wool,figuratively speaking. If they took into account faults vs mileage it would be a start.

I'll point out again i said ascending order. Nissan and Kia are 10th and 9th.

You know whats strange, everytime these lists come out its always dominated by Japanese and increasingly Korean firms. But ive never, ever, ever considered buying any of them.

I know a Honda and a Toyota etc are stunningly well made and bulletproof but they're so mind numbingly boring i just cant bring myself to think of buying one.

Well i own a petrol S-Type with £460 tax disc and everything but seeing as i work 7 miles from where i live it really doesnt matter, others arent so lucky im fully aware. I always wanted a car like this so decided to have a year of it while it was still possible. Although to be fair to it, for a big 3 litre petrol automatic its surprisingly economical if you drive it with a small bit of thought.

I know Lexus is just a posh Toyota and i know about the GS hybrid thing but in my opinion its too expensive for what it is, especially as normal big petrol cars are diving in price. You're right the Prius did pleasantly surprise me recently it has its plus points but i still probably wont buy such a thing until its unavoidable but it was nice to know that when im eventually forced into an eco box it definately wont be as bad as i thought.

My Mazda has been so reliable I would have another for sure. I am well impressed with it. But then it was already almost 5 years old when I bought it, from a small dealership (no premises - puts the stocklist on the web and you ask to see the ones you like). Kwikfit haven't let me down with the servicing either! The only things that have gone awry are the standard things you'd expect to replace anyway; I have had a new tyre due to a slow puncture, and a headlight bulb. The Focus I had before was also brilliant but the clutch gave out at 86k.

Current cars:

Honda Jazz. 6 years old. No breakdowns. Did have a small problem selecting reverse gear, linkage sorted by dealer under warranty

Toyota Landcruiser 4.5 years. No breakdowns. Slight bump when coming to a stop. Needed propshaft greasing. When it re-occured they replaced the propshaft.

Mazda Mx-5. No breakdowns. Had a rattle from the instrument cowl. Fixed under warranty.

Previous cars (since 2000):

Mondeo. Several minor faults and one major (turbo failed @ 60,000 miles).

BMw 330d. No breakdowns but lots of niggles - EGR valve and handbrake mainly.

Saab 9-5 Aero. No breakdowns