Honda and Toyota top Warranty Direct engine reliability ratings


More findings by a Warranty Direct study indicate that if you want a car with the most-reliable engine, buy Japanese. Honda and Toyota proved to be the manufacturers with the most reliable power units in their study, while Mercedes-Benz upheld some German honour by taking the third best accolade.

Warranty Direct studied data from 50,000 consumer policies which showed that the engines to have failed more than any other were from MG Rover. But with an ageing car parc, and low values, cars from this manufacturer are probably the least well maintained out there.Warranty Direct Managing Director Duncan McClure Fisher said of the study: ‘Engine failures are the biggest fear for any motorist as they’re the ones that can lead to the most astronomical costs because of the parts and hours or labour required to fix them. The number of failures may be low compared to areas such as axle and suspension damage but engine repairs almost always result in costs reaching the thousands for motorists who aren’t covered by a warranty.’

If you polled a room full of drivers asking for a list of “good engines,” you’d likely get a list as long as it is diverse. That’s probably because each person’s criteria for what makes an engine “good” is somewhat different. We know what we think makes a good engine, but is not maintenance more of an influencing factor?

Assuming it was possible to take two identical cars either from Honda or Toyota and gave those cars to two different drivers, one that maintained it by routinely checking all the fluids, servicing it on time and the other driver does none of this. Is it more likely that the driver that does no maintenace going to have a catastrophic engine failure, where the driver that performs maintenance has no problems with the engine?

Also what about two drivers of identical cars where one routinely abuses the car by over revving it and the other does not. How would you expect that to influence the engine replacements.

When reading what Warranty Direct states, it obviously is from their expenses, but it tells nothing of whether the car is maintained or driven carefully. It is helpful to have their information, but it should be considered carefully as it could be scare tactic marketing in an attempt to persuade people to buy their policies .