Are there any reliable cars that are made in the UK?

Nephilim Wolf · 19-06-2011 02:41AM #1

I'm just very curious to know are there any reliable\very reliable cars that are made in the UK apart from prestige brands\makes like Bentley, Rolls Royce, Aston Martin and possibly Jaguar. I'm not looking to buy a UK car at all, as I'm very very happy with my VW Golf. I'm also curious to know where the old Rover P4's, Rover P5's and Rover P6's reliable or where they really bad and unreliable?

3rdDegree · 19-06-2011 02:47AM

Even when I was a child, I recall Rovers being considered unreliable. That was quite a while ago! Were the original Mini's made in the UK?

Maxav · 19-06-2011 02:51AM

Nissan

Made in Sunderland:):)

Nephilim Wolf · 19-06-2011 02:53AM

3rdDegree wrote: »

Even when I was a child, I recall Rovers being considered unreliable. That was quite a while ago! Were the original Mini's made in the UK?

Thanks for that 3rdDegree.:) The original Mini's where indeed made in the UK, and most of them were made in British Leyland factories. The new ones are BMW engineered, and I'm sure they great and very reliable, but they lack the character of the original Mini's that were made back in the day.

Maxav wrote: »

Nissan

Made in Sunderland

Nissan's are great cars as well, but I'm not so sure about the latest ones though, because they migh have Renault engines. What I really meant was cars that were originally made in the UK like Rolls Royce, Bentley Jaguar, MG, Rover, Vauxhall, Triumph, Aston Martin, Austin etc.

19-06-2011 02:59AM

My ZT was made in the UK, I have it almost a year now and perfectly reliable except for the battery dieing on Stephens morning. Not what you want to hear though I imagine.

Nephilim Wolf · 19-06-2011 03:06AM

RoverJames wrote: »

My ZT was made in the UK, I have it almost a year now and perfectly reliable except for the battery dieing on Stephens morning. Not what you want to hear though I imagine.

I never heard of a ZT before.

I actually would like to hear of any British reliable cars, but like I said they have to be British cars, and not Toyata's, Nissan's, Mazada's that are manufactored in the UK. Does anybody know if Rolls Royce's, Bentley's and Aston Martin's are indeed extremely reliable cars? I just thought I'd ask, because I heard they are very reliable from what I read, but could be wrong.

Maxav · 19-06-2011 03:07AM

Seriously the Juke, Note and Qashqai are made in Sunderland.
The Honda CR-V and Civic are made in Swindon.
Toyota make the Auris and Avensis in Burnaston.
BMW make the Mini in Oxford and Ford make the Transit in Southampton, now how many of the above would fit your criteria of being reliable is open to interpretation particularly with Toyota's recent problems but most of the rest should qualify.

Nephilim Wolf · 19-06-2011 03:12AM

Maxav wrote: »

Seriously the Juke, Note and Qashqai are made in Sunderland.
The Honda CR-V and Civic are made in Swindon.
Toyota make the Auris and Avensis in Burnaston.
BMW make the Mini in Oxford and Ford make the Transit in Southampton, now how many of the above would fit your criteria of being reliable is open to interpretation particularly with Toyota's recent problems but most of the rest should qualify.

Sorry Maxav, but I think some people ar getting a bit confused here. I didn't mean Japanese cars that are made in the UK, but UK built cars like Vauxhall, Rover, MG, Land Rover, Aston Martin, Morgan etc.;)

19-06-2011 03:15AM

Nephilim Wolf wrote: »

I never heard of a ZT before. ....: ught I'd ask, because I heard they are very reliable from what I read, but could be wrong. .

It's a rover 75 with an mg badge.

Maxav · 19-06-2011 03:15AM

Nephilim Wolf wrote: »

Thanks for that 3rdDegree.:)
Nissan's are great cars as well, but I'm not so sure about the latest ones though, because they migh have Renault engines. What I really meant was cars that were originally made in the UK like Rolls Royce, Bentley Jaguar, MG, Rover, Vauxhall, Triumph, Aston Martin, Austin etc.

Sorry, I was typing my second post as you were clarifying your question, Here's a link to all the manufacturers in UK, Scroll about half way down and there's a list of all those still in production.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry_in_the_United_Kingdom

Nephilim Wolf · 19-06-2011 03:24AM

RoverJames wrote: »

It's a rover 75 with an mg badge.

I always thought those Rover's/MG's looked a bit like a Jaguar, mainly because of the lights at the back and the overall shape. How reliable is it, and how long have you had it? Have you had any major problems with it?

Maxav wrote: »

Sorry, I was typing my second post as you were clarifying your question, Here's a link to all the manufacturers in UK, Scroll about half way down and there's a list of all those still in production.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry_in_the_United_Kingdom

Thanks for that interesting link.:D

19-06-2011 03:52AM

Nephilim Wolf wrote: »

I always thought those Rover's/MG's looked a bit like a Jaguar, mainly because of the lights at the back and the overall shape. How reliable is it, and how long have you had it? Have you had any major problems with it?

......

RoverJames wrote: »

.......... I have it almost a year now and perfectly reliable except for the battery dieing on Stephens morning. ................

Pdfile · 19-06-2011 06:38AM

caterhams are alright.... and erhm.... lotus's are Ok....

Relations had both above, bare the usual clutch and tyre expenses... they alright... but they are a car to trash on the weekend and nothing less imho.

corktina · 19-06-2011 08:13AM

Vauxh*ll As*ra seems your only choice. (censored to protect the sensibilites of my firends who dont like to hear me swear)

Richard · 19-06-2011 08:34AM

corktina wrote: »

Vauxh*ll As*ra seems your only choice. (censored to protect the sensibilites of my firends who dont like to hear me swear)

But that's just an Opal Astra elsewhere, nothing particularly British about it, apart from the name.

Vicxas · 19-06-2011 08:54AM

I thought the running joke was that all british cars are awfully unreliable and poorly built.

Terrontress · 19-06-2011 09:02AM

London Black Cab. I think they make them in Coventry. They must be pretty reliable, given the job they do.

The problem with the British car industry was trade unions. British cars were as good as or better than all other nations' car industries until the 60s. Then you had strikes, flying pickets, union appeasement etc and the whole thing turned to dust. Strikes being called because someone was asked to do a different job as there was nothing for them to do on their nominated task.

The cars were unreliable, they looked awful compared with continental imports and money was being lost hand over fist. Decent companies such as Jensen went down the tube due to labour issues. And all the workers lost their jobs anyway.

Even successful models such as the Metro are quite embarrassing in retrospect. Especially when compared to the VW Polo, Renault 5 or Peugeot 205. Or the Maestro when compared to a Golf. The Austin Maxi! What was that about?

The only good British owned, British manufactured car since the late 60s that I can think of has been the Rover SD1.

Terrontress · 19-06-2011 09:06AM

Richard wrote: »

But that's just an Opal Astra elsewhere, nothing particularly British about it, apart from the name.

And Vauxhall's range of vans, once world leaders as Bedford, are just rebadged Renaults - also available as Nissan.

alanmcqueen · 19-06-2011 09:26AM

This site provides very useful ratings for vehicle reliability:

http://www.reliabilityindex.com/what-is

corktina · 19-06-2011 10:54AM

Richard wrote: »

But that's just an Opel Astra elsewhere, nothing particularly British about it, apart from the name.

i think the people at Ellesmere Port would think of it as a Vauxhall primarily seeing as its a Vauxhall plant and always was and therefore very British.

The Britsh car industry was once the worlds best and it was only really when you got to the late seventies that imports started to get a real toehold and Britsh quality (particularly British Leyland and its other guises) started to slip.Union intransigence and short-sightedness has a lot to do with this.

Ironic that the biggest British manufactureres are now Toyota, Nissan and Honda.

Matt Simis · 19-06-2011 11:01AM

Richard wrote: »

But that's just an Opal Astra elsewhere, nothing particularly British about it, apart from the name.

Who cares? The question was made in the UK, not wholly owned by British people. There are loads of cars made in the UK and many of them score well on reliability as per that list earlier.

PS: Its "Opel" not Opal. Its not a stone.

johnos1984 · 19-06-2011 12:49PM

Terrontress wrote: »

London Black Cab. I think they make them in Coventry. They must be pretty reliable, given the job they do.

LTI are now gone to China

Dempsey · 19-06-2011 12:54PM

My Honda Civic is British built, zero reliability issues in its 14 years of use.

kona · 19-06-2011 12:57PM

If you go to england there are still loads of British marques driving around, despite the newest probably being 6 or 7 years old at this stage. If you belived the ****e pedalled here about them, youd swear they didnt make it off the assembly line without either rusting or suffering head gasket failure.

partyatmygaff · 19-06-2011 01:08PM

I don't think it really matters where the car is physically assembled. It's where the car was originally designed that really matters. All car manufacturers use much the same extremely expensive CNC machining processes to make their parts and robot assembly to assemble the car and weld together its chassis e.t.c.

A Honda or Nissan assembled in the UK isn't a British car. It was designed in Japan and is a Japanese car.

Mister Jingles · 19-06-2011 01:30PM

It might not be a car but isn't the Transit made in the UK ?

Anan1 · 19-06-2011 01:33PM

Matt Simis wrote: »

Who cares? The question was made in the UK, not wholly owned by British people.

No, the OP ruled out UK-built Nissans, among others. I think what the OP means is cars that were originally British and are still built in the UK - ie Jaguar would qualify, in spite of being Indian-owned.

Terrontress · 19-06-2011 01:41PM

johnos1984 wrote: »

LTI are now gone to China

I think it's owned by Geely but do they manufacture over there? The design of the TX was certainly undertaken while under British ownership.

From what I can ascertain, the largest British owned British based motor manufacturer is JCB!

robbie_998 · 19-06-2011 01:50PM

Honda.

Yes some in ireland are from Japan and some in ireland are from Britain

but mine is British and its perfect

in ireland ALL hondas are imported but are originally registered in ireland

kona · 19-06-2011 01:53PM

partyatmygaff wrote: »

I don't think it really matters where the car is physically assembled. It's where the car was originally designed that really matters. All car manufacturers use much the same extremely expensive CNC machining processes to make their parts and robot assembly to assemble the car and weld together its chassis e.t.c.

A Honda or Nissan assembled in the UK isn't a British car. It was designed in Japan and is a Japanese car.

No matter what manufacturing methods you employ, you still have humans running quality control, humans inputting the G codes into the CnC machines, there are tasks that a robot simply cannot do as there is no way of guaranteeing a part will be always in the same place and lined up. To be fair CnC has been around awhile at this stage, Im sure Rover employed it on some of its cars?
Another point on robots, FIAT (insert stupid witty rename here) used robots to construct some of the worst heaps of **** car bodies the world has seen. They also used robots to construct the FIRE engines used in the Punto and the Seicento (oh yea the ones the suffer HGF every 200miles if claims are to believed). Incidentally the FIRE engines are excellent, as with most italian engines.

Another thing to look at is, engineering is certainly a global industry, but back in the 60s it wasnt. Havning a go at britain having **** engineers is laughable tbh.

SpannerMonkey · 19-06-2011 02:15PM

Nephilim Wolf wrote: »

I'm just very curious to know are there any reliable\very reliable cars that are made in the UK apart from prestige brands\makes like Bentley, Rolls Royce, Aston Martin and possibly Jaguar. I'm not looking to buy a UK car at all, as I'm very very happy with my VW Golf. I'm also curious to know where the old Rover P4's, Rover P5's and Rover P6's reliable or where they really bad and unreliable?

NO

Are there any reliable cars that are made in the UK?

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