How do you rate reliability?

flyingsnail

In general when talking about car reliability are you talking about the amount of things you had to get fixed or the amount of show stoppers that meant you couldn’t continue with your journey, or do you use a combination of both? If I was to go by the amount of (non service items) items replaced then my mondeo is less reliable than my corsa but I was always able to drive it, on the flip side I replaced less items on the corsa but I had two show stoppers that required me getting towed.

So what criteria do you use to gauge if car x is more reliable than car y?

Anan1

It's been years since i've been brought to a complete halt by a breakdown, so for me it's the other bits. I find it very hard to continue driving a car knowing that there's something wrong with it.

pajo1981

In the 10 years I've been driving, I've never had a a car break down on me.
I've had a couple of minor electrical things, but otherwise plain sailing.

Where To

pajo1981 wrote: »

In the 10 years I've been driving, Iv'e never had a a car break down on me.
I've had a couple of minor electrical things, but otherwise plain sailing.

Famous last words . . . . . . .

pajo1981

Where To wrote: »

Famous last words . . . . . . .

Don't expect to either.

Voodoomelon

This is it, you hear it all the time, someone saying they had X car and they had nothing but trouble with it, when in fact it was a handful of relatively minor issues which cost them a fortune to fix at a dealer which may have inconvenienced them greatly.

Other people could maybe sort these same problems themselves or get them repaired at a reasonable cost and consider the car nothing but reliable.

A lot of "reliable" talk is down the person and not the car.

sparksfly

I dont want to spend any money on replacing non service parts.
Repayments, fuel, tax, insurance and routine servicing are more than enough.
I dont want to fail to get somewhere on time due to a breakdown.
Have managed to achieve this on my last 3 cars which I bought at 2 years old with low milage and kept for 3 years, with an average mileage of 30,000 per annum.
This is reliable in my book.

Zubeneschamali

Newish cars rarely leave people stranded, and the difference between that happening once in ten years vs. once in 10 and a half years is too small for people to measure through experience, only statistical studies will tell.

The Real B-man

Only My second Car Broke down Once Coil Pack 3cyl Ibiza got to Garage on 2 Cylinders though sounded like a Dumper

I would think of reliability as being how much you can rely on the car to get you to where you're going.

If issues were major and caused the car to be off the road a lot - not reliable.

barura

A reliable car is one that is taken care of. Or at the very least, let not run out of coolant and oil. I've met people who let their car run dry on both of these but on "reliable" cars and they were suprised when they broke down! A lot of people think reliable means "doesn't need to be serviced" which is just crazy!

pyramuid man

The Real B-man wrote: »

Only My second Car Broke down Once Coil Pack 3cyl Ibiza got to Garage on 2 Cylinders though sounded like a Dumper

I had a Citroen xsara and the body control unit went in it. Got that fixed and coil pack went. Got that fixed and clutch release bearing went. That wad the straw that broke the camel's back. Wasn't reliable but one comfortable place to sit.

CiniO

pajo1981 wrote: »

In the 10 years I've been driving, I've never had a a car break down on me.
I've had a couple of minor electrical things, but otherwise plain sailing.

I also in 13 years of driving was never left on the side of the road, but I must say that I encountered failures which most likely would cause other drivers to call towing truck.

1. Once my clutch-cable snapped, and I had to drive 80km back home without using my clutch pedal. I just changed gears without using the clutch, and whenever I had to stop I was turning off engine, and then starting it on the first gear.

2. Once my accelerator clutch snapped. I had about 300km to do. With a little bit of thin wire, I attached my throttle at mid-open position, which cause car to have about 5000rpm on neutral, and drove the whole distance like that. On straight road car was doing about 70km/h. Up the hill I had to reduce gears, sometimes even to 1st, and car was slowing down to as little as 10km/h sometimes. Down the hill though I was doing 120km/h and over Luckily it was in the middle of night with almost no other traffic.

3. Other time a front mounting of the engine snapped, and engine has bent a lot to the front, causing a pulley with fanbelt to touch a radiator and pretty much to almost drill a hole in it. I discovered however, than if I accelerate, engine comes back to it's normal position. I had only about 10km back home, so I decided I'm going to drive accelerating all the time to keep my engine in proper position. To achieve it, I did this on 1st gear and kept my left foot on brake at all time to make some resistance for engine. When I reached home, brake discs were nearly red, but I made it

Henry Ford III

pyramuid man wrote: »

I had a Citroen xsara and the body control unit went in it. Got that fixed and coil pack went. Got that fixed and clutch release bearing went. That wad the straw that broke the camel's back. Wasn't reliable but one comfortable place to sit.

So is a leather reclining armchair

Fiona

Had my car on a flat bed 3 times this year. When she is good she is very good but when she is bad she is horrible! I never had a problem with my Mitsubishi Colt or my Seat Leon. The only issue was the boredom i encountered whilst driving them. I prefer fun and unreliable

Tea 1000

mrs crilly wrote: »

Had my car on a flat bed 3 times this year. When she is good she is very good but when she is bad she is horrible! I never had a problem with my Mitsubishi Colt or my Seat Leon. The only issue was the boredom i encountered whilst driving them. I prefer fun and unreliable

What have you?
I rate reliability based on how much abuse a car can take and not give any hassle. To that end, the one winner for me is a 98 Civic coupe vti. Never seen a car before or since to take solid, solid abuse for over 2 years by the owner. The only thing that went wrong was a heat reflector guard over a part of the exhaust came a little loose and started to vibrate a bit. Probably came loose while the engine was at 8,200rpm bouncing off the limiter at least 6 times a day!

Fiona

1990 e30 325 and a 04 318ci. The only cars that have ever given me trouble are bmws both new and old! My old colt was sold to my dads mate who would use it for everything and he says its still going strong 5 years later. It was a 96

ianobrien

For me, reliability is composed of two parts. The first is the items that leave you stranded. The second are the annoying things that go wrong but you can still get home.

The worst for me was a 20 year old Citroen AX that suffered a coil failure one night at about 1 in the morning. That left me stranded alright. That being said, I really gave that car some abuse. I once drove it 15km home from Mahon Point with a cracked water hose. As long as the coolant system didn't pressurise, the crack stayed closed. It was an interesting drive home......

I also had a distributor cap fail on the vintage car on the South Link on the way home. It was an easy fix as I had a spare in the boot.

Other than that, Most of the other vehicles have been Nissans and while they may be dull, by Christ are they reliable. They have taken some abuse! There was a Micra that had a rather tough 160k miles of life from us. We (it was either me or the brother) even managed to bend the front anti-roll bar, flatten the exhaust guard bolts & bend the front cross-member and the car never gave an hours trouble.....

dgt

Reliability? Different people, different views...

I can't rely on my BMW to start with the turn of the key for example. Or I can rely on my Fiats to bring me home if something breaks (yeah yeah I've heard all the jokes). Gearbox failure, diff failure, hg failure, alternator failure, exhaust falling off, still got me home. But I can rely on them to start and drive without much bother when sorted properly

To me, minimum maintainance is where a lot can go wrong. Overlook the small nitty gritty bits and they'll all come back together to bite you in the arse further down the road :pac:

We have a Merc that started up first crack of the key after lying in a barn for over 10 years (new plugs, fuel pump and oil) I think that's reliable

Fiona

dgt wrote: »

Reliability? Different people, different views...

I can't rely on my BMW to start with the turn of the key for example.

I love playing the will it wont it game every morning :D

dgt

mrs crilly wrote: »

I love playing the will it wont it game every morning :D

My E34 only starts in good dry weather. It refused to start in the cold winter of 2010, waited till summer till it decided to work properly again :eek:

Fiona

To be fair the E30 started every day this year with the cold weather but she has to be driven every day. If you leave it 3/4 days in the rain she will fire up but she will be piggy, a couple of times she has not been firing on all cylinders so I just had to leave it running a while and then it dried itself out.

dgt

Mine had to be sent away to be rewired a few years ago, 1980s wires weren't up to today standards. Costly and still broken

I may add a new dizzy to the shopping list...

Fiona

I have a problem with my wiring as well or something with the fuse the fogs and indicators keep blowing it's so annoying :mad:

maidhc

Reliability isn't about being stranded. I have only ever been stranded twice, once with a dead battery and secondly when my Capri threw its toys out of the pram.

Most cars I have had have given problems and needed maintenance, but that isn't surprising given the lenght of time they are kept and miles they do. If an engine failed in a car in the morning it wouldn't worry me greatly so long as it had over 200k done.

Never had a rotten intermittent electrical issue, that is the only thing that would cause me to offload a car.

mickob16

Ive 2 cars,a 00 Golf TDI and a 05 525d.Ive had the Golf almost 9 yrs and it is an unbelievable machine.Only 90 bhp(new) but she has pulled trailers filled with sand,gravel,concrete blocks and even a massive bucket from an excavator.Ive kept her serviced and its never given a problem.

I bought the BMW 2 yrs ago and as much as i love it she has given more trouble.Several leaks,problems with the restraint systems and another thing that caused the car to refuse to start(cant remember what it was) which led to it being towed.Although all that work was under warranty and they clean the car when you bring it in plus they give decent replacement cars:)

jsd1004

CiniO wrote: »

I also in 13 years of driving was never left on the side of the road, but I must say that I encountered failures which most likely would cause other drivers to call towing truck.

1. Once my clutch-cable snapped, and I had to drive 80km back home without using my clutch pedal. I just changed gears without using the clutch, and whenever I had to stop I was turning off engine, and then starting it on the first gear.

2. Once my accelerator clutch snapped. I had about 300km to do. With a little bit of thin wire, I attached my throttle at mid-open position, which cause car to have about 5000rpm on neutral, and drove the whole distance like that. On straight road car was doing about 70km/h. Up the hill I had to reduce gears, sometimes even to 1st, and car was slowing down to as little as 10km/h sometimes. Down the hill though I was doing 120km/h and over Luckily it was in the middle of night with almost no other traffic.

3. Other time a front mounting of the engine snapped, and engine has bent a lot to the front, causing a pulley with fanbelt to touch a radiator and pretty much to almost drill a hole in it. I discovered however, than if I accelerate, engine comes back to it's normal position. I had only about 10km back home, so I decided I'm going to drive accelerating all the time to keep my engine in proper position. To achieve it, I did this on 1st gear and kept my left foot on brake at all time to make some resistance for engine. When I reached home, brake discs were nearly red, but I made it

Jesus glad i did not meet you.

jsd1004

jsd1004 wrote: »

Jesus glad i did not meet you.

By the way have a Lotus 340r but driving an alfa 156 at the moment with 165k miles and she is still an entertaining drive. The lotus has 4k miles..

Macaonbhuit

I have owned two Corollas, a 99 1.3 3 dr petrol HB, and and 1.4 D4D 5dr HB. Both were bought new in 99 and 06 respectively. 130K miles on the 99 and at the moment 130K on the 06. The petrol was abused up and down the roads of Ireland, but was always serviced on time. The Diesel had little abuse, but again always serviced on time. Apart from an unblocking of fuel lines on the diesel, I have never had a single issue with them..... just the boredom of driving them. Unfortunately this is now my bar for reliability. For me, it's all about maintenance, and partially..... buying new (or nearly new) cars, so you can be as sure as possible of their history

CiniO

jsd1004 wrote: »

Jesus glad i did not meet you.

Why?
If you met me, you could help by towing me