James Ruppert Digging through real reliability stats
Beware the hidden costs of used cars: those epic repair bills
he trouble with best used car of the year surveys is just that: they’re surveys, based on opinion, rather than cold hard facts. Facts don’t care about your feelings and how much you believe in your decision to buy an old SUV. That’s why what always gets my full attention are reports with actual reliability stats based on real cars.
Motoreasy, the car ownership and maintenance company, used insights from its 40,000-strong bank of warranty plans to come up with some worst-case scenarios in terms of costly parts failures. Rather than simply publish a list of the issues, however, the company used the data to cobble together the worst possible used car. All you need to know is that here are seven of the biggest repair bills the firm has encountered in various component categories over the previous 12 months.
So what have we got and just what sort of patterns start to emerge? Well, a 2011 Range Rover would seem to be a pretty poor investment. A replacement engine is £15,689.52. It will be one of those complex diesel ones, then. Also, if the Rangie needed a new axle and suspension, well that’s £2050.90. Next up is Audi for scary invoices. If the electrics on your late2000s A3 go haywire, you too could be charged a pretty stiff £3167.74. Meanwhile, a 2010 Audi A5 with an iffy gearbox might set you back £898.06 and a 2007 A6 with an air-con unit that refuses to blow cold
Tcould cost £782.60. BMW doesn’t come up smelling of roses either: a 2007 Z4 braking system was a substantial £1299.60 and an 2007 3 Series’ steering system was £782.60.
What we can glean from this is that expensive cars generate some whopping repair bills. Sherlock would also point out that these are also popular models, so there are more than enough around to make it a decently representative sample.
I have said several times on this page that used car failure stats should be more accurate and Motoreasy’s are a good step in the right direction. I will be asking the company over the coming months for some even more helpful figures that should enable us to make the right decisions and to know exactly which models to avoid.
What’s clear from the statistics is that you shouldn’t buy a previously expensive car and expect it to cost buttons to run. Although my experience has been pretty good, perhaps I have just been lucky. I am hoping my luck holds out as I plan to commit to some previously pricey V8 cars. The best anyone can do is ensure there is a full service history and plenty of receipts proving that at least the last few owners cared. That is still no guarantee, of course, but maybe we can use real data in the future. I’ll be working on it.
Don’t expect an expensive car to cost buttons to run