What Car? Reliability Survey: Most and least reliable executive cars
In our annual Reliability Survey, we ask readers to rate the dependability of cars aged up to five years old. Here we list the most and least reliable executive saloons and estates...
Executive cars are status symbols that tell the world you've reached a certain standard in your working life. They're usually medium or large saloons or estates with premium badges and lots of electrical gadgetry.
While they're good-looking and generally great to drive, they have a lot of kit that could go wrong, and being stuck at the roadside waiting for a breakdown truck isn't going to do your image any good – so you need to pick your executive express with care.
And our Reliability Survey data shows that some executive cars fall well short of the standard you might expect. While this is not the most problematic car class, the average score of 89.4% signals that some executive cars can be rather flaky. The class average has dropped a little on 2023, when it was 91.1%, demonstrating the need to choose your executive car wisely.
How the research was carried out
The latest survey, compiled in association with MotorEasy, contains data from 29,967 car owners, and reveals the reliability ratings for 199 models from 31 different brands. Each rating is based on two crucial factors relating to every car that suffered a fault: how much each fault cost the car owner in repair bills, and how long the car was stuck in the workshop getting fixed.
To add extra depth to our ratings, we also asked car owners to tell us which component on their vehicle went wrong, asking them to choose from 14 different areas: air-con, battery, bodywork, brakes, engine or motor, engine or motor electrics, exhaust, fuel system, gearbox/clutch, interior trim, non-engine or motor electrics, sat-nav/infotainment, steering, suspension systems. This year we also added two specific categories for electric cars: charging and drive battery issues, to help us to build a better picture of EV ownership.
The car reliability data reported on here covers cars aged up to five years old.
The 2025 What Car? Reliability Survey is live, tell us about your car now
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