Bentley & Porsche the most UNRELIABLE used cars

Bentley – the most unreliable used car you can buy

Warranty Direct’s annual survey on its used car warranty customers has revealed that Porsche and Bentley are the most unreliable used cars in the UK. Honda were the most reliable.

Warranty Direct (in conjunction with What Car?) has been publishing an annual survey of used car reliability for the last nine years, using data gleaned from Warranty Direct’s (now) 50,000 live warranties on used cars between three and eight years old.

At the top of the reliability lists the winners have never been much of a surprise, with the Japanese and Koreans regularly at the top, but it’s the other end – the most unreliable cars – that’s been the most interesting.

In 2012, for example, the most unreliable car was a Land Rover, closely followed by Alfa Romeo and Jeep. But this year it’s the cream of the crop of used cars that come in for a bashing, with Bentley at the bottom of the list, propping up Porsche.

Warranty Direct’s formula for working out ranking is a complicated one that takes in to account age, failure rate and cost of repair to come up with an ‘RI’ number to rank each maker, something that clearly mitigates against marques like Porsche and Bentley. But it’s still bad news for VW Group that their luxury and performance brands fared so badly.

Interestingly, it’s another VW Group car – the Audi RS6 – that was the single most unreliable car, and Land Rover, BMW, Mercedes and Jaguar are all in the bottom ten (or Top Ten Most Unreliable cars, if you like), which probably tells us that the simpler the car you buy, the more reliable it’s going to be.

Interestingly, Bentley and Porsche don’t seem to have been responsible for the most expensive repair warranty direct had to fork out for, with a Nissan repair costing £20,747 (what on earth was that for?) and a Vauxhall repair £15,000. In contrast, the highest cost Porsche repair was a comparatively modest £10,348 and for Bentley just £8,406.65.

But using Warranty Direct’s complex ‘RI’ formula the most reliable car – a Honda – is 15 times more reliable than a Bentley, and the Bentley – at the bottom of the heap – is almost twice as unreliable as the Porsche in second to last place.

None of which will stop you wanting a Porsche or Bentley in the first place, but you will be making sure it’s got a proper warranty when you buy.

Which, we rather suspect, is what Warranty Direct want.