J.D. Power and Associates released its Annual Survey of the Most Dependable Vehicles. J.D. Power surveyed the owners of 2008 model year vehicles and asked the participants to report back on problems they experience with their vehicles over a 3 year period. The problems included, excessive wind noise, noisy brakes, if the vehicle pulling to the left or right, issues with the instrument panel/dashboard, and excessive window fogging. J.D. Power concluded, for the first time, Fords’ Lincoln Brand is the most dependable vehicle by their standards.
Speaking with the President of The Veri-Cheque Group of Companies, Ronald Renwick, regarding the J.D. Power & Associates Report, Mr. Renwick finds the report interesting but, “the devil is in the details” says Renwick, “as a warranty provider our main interest is in whether a transmission or brake callipers will hold up beyond the manufacturer’s initial warranty period, not so much if there is excessive noise in the cabin at high speeds. Although this type of measure can give you an indication of a vehicle’s overall engineering quality–if the radiator has a history of breaking down– this is much more important to us, than cabin noise.” Over the last 10 Years Ensurall and its partner divisions, have sold many tens of thousands of contracts on just about every make and model vehicle available in North America. A huge amount of information is gleaned from this extensive experience, including which components on what makes or models have the greatest tendency to break down, as well as which components in what makes or models are the most expensive to fix– both in terms of dealership labour rates, and cost of replacement parts. Renwick explains if you want his best advice regarding vehicle reliability an examination of Ensurall’s prices for different makes and models is his best indication.
Below is a comparison of Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai/Kia, Nissan, and Toyota makes. We compared 5 categories of cars from each fleet, compacts, full-sized sedans, minivans, SUVs and pick-up trucks. We used the actuarial pricing of a 5 Year/105,000 KM Ensurall Essential Warranty on 2008 model year vehicles with 60,000 KM on each vehicle for our test.
Ensurall’s Reliability List:
1.) Toyota: Narrowly edges out Honda for our top spot. Toyota has no star performers, however has no real weak spots either. Consistently reliable across all their models. Warranties on these vehicles are the most affordable.
2.) Honda: Would have scored better, but the Honda Pilot brought Honda’s overall score down a bit. In every category except SUV the Honda is as good or outperformed the other makes. Honda’s SUVs were tied with Ford’s SUV line-up.
3.) Kia/Hyundai: Korean makes have made giant strides in the area of dependability and reliability. The newer the model the more reliable. **Note: Do not have Truck line-ups.
4.) Nissan: Japanese cars are great balance of reliability and low cost for repairs. Nissan is close behind the top three spots.
5.) GM: Historically a large gap existed between US and Japanese makes but GM is best among American makes, and making strides to get better. GM’s compact models perform almost as well as the Japanese makes.
5.) Ford: Consistently mediocre. American cars generally have a higher failure rate, however “cost per repair” are lower, and therefore warranty prices are still very economical.
6.) Chrysler: In the Sedan category Chrysler is better than Ford otherwise they bring up the
rear in all vehicle categories.