UK's 'most unreliable' car named after huge survey of 30,000 drivers

A brand new survey claims to have established the UK’s most unreliable car .

The survey, by automotive publication WhatCar?, used data from 32,493 owners of cars in the UK that were up to five years old. Furthermore, it covered 30 brands and 227 different models.

As part of the survey, owners were asked if their car had had any faults or problems within the previous 24 months. After this, the cars that had gone wrong were rated on how much the repairs had cost and how long they took to be repaired. A car’s overall score was then expressed as a percentage.

Following extensive calculations, the petrol version of the Nissan Juke (2019 onwards) was considered the most unreliable with a score of 55.2 percent.

Of the survey respondents who were petrol Nissan Juke owners, 24 percent told WhatCar? their Juke had gone wrong with 64 percent saying the faults kept their cars out of action for more than a week and 60 percent of the faults had cost over £1,500 to be fixed.

Despite the petrol Juke’s rating, other Nissan models such as the world-changing Qashqai, X-Trail, and LEAF all performed well in their respective categories, achieving over 90 percent.

Discussing this year’s reliability survey results, WhatCar?’s consumer editor Claire Evans said: “One in four cars aged up to five years old went wrong, and although most were fixed by the car makers, when they didn’t step up and do this, it left some owners with eye-watering bills.”

Responding to the results, a spokesperson for Nissan told ReachPlc: “We are pleased to see that Qashqai, X-Trail and LEAF all performed well in their classes with a 95% or higher reliability score, and all were in the top 25% of most reliable cars overall.

“The Juke result is disappointing as it differs from our customer data and from other independent sources and we are discussing this with What Car?. Nissan is fully committed to the highest standards of quality and reliability in its vehicles and always values fair and constructive customer feedback.”

The results for Nissan come a few months after the company announced it was cutting 250 jobs at its Sunderland plant as part of a major cost cutting drive. The cuts, announced in July, amounted to a four percent cut in its workforce through a voluntary redundancy scheme.

At the time a spokesperson for Nissan said: “This week we are beginning discussions with some of our team in Sunderland about the opportunity to voluntarily leave Nissan, with support from the company.”