Buying a car of one brand or another can be a guarantee of not suffering breakdowns. This is attested to by the Vehicle Dependability Study report by the American consulting firm JD Power, which has consulted 30,595 owners who purchased their car in 2021 about 184 areas of the vehicle susceptible to problems. With this complex statistics, the consulting firm has developed an index that calculates the number of problems per 100 units sold. In this way, several Asian manufacturers have managed to remain among those that obtain the best results.
Lexus leads the ranking of this annual report with 135 breakdowns per 100 vehicles under warranty, followed by Toyota (147), Buick (149), Chevrolet (174), Mini (174) and Porsche (175). The Japanese Mazda occupies seventh place with an index of 185, ahead of the Korean Kia with 187. BMW or Dodge complete the ‘top ten’, while to find another Asian brand we must go down to Hyundai’s 13th place (198, 18 points more than in 2023) or 15th from Nissan (199).
The area in which respondents report the most breakdowns corresponds to infotainment systems, with 49 cases per 100 cars. Specifically, connectivity with Android Auto and Apple Car (6.3) or voice recognition (6.1) are the most notable problems. JD Power attributes these results to vehicles leaving the dealership with more and more integrated technology. The consultancy also highlights the inconvenience that driving assistance systems generate among users.
Interestingly, pure electric vehicles have a breakdown rate of 256 per 100 cars, ahead of plug-in hybrids (216), gasoline hybrids (191) or gasoline (187).
The JD Power study confirms an OCU report that already in 2022 praised Asian cars. After launching a survey of more than 52,000 drivers in five countries, the consumer organization also crowned Lexus as the most reliable brand, with 95%. On those occasions, the top 9 positions in the classification were occupied by Asian brands: Subaru, Toyota, Mitsubishi, Kia, Suzuki, Hyundai, Honda and Mazda, with reliability rates between 85% and 93%.
By model, the Kia Rio or the Hyundai i20 were among the best-rated cars with a gasoline engine. The Lexus IS or the Toyota Corolla stood out among gasoline hybrids, while the Kia Niro or the Mitsubishi Outlander did the same in the field of plug-in hybrids.
In the case of those surveyed by the OCU, electrical breakdowns (17%) or electronic problems (8%) are also the most common, along with those of the brake system (13%), the engine (8%). or food (7%). Contrary to the JD Power report, gasoline hybrids are the ones that report greater reliability, with ten models above 95% satisfaction.
