It is said that your choice of car says a lot about you and many people believe that the brand of car you drive has an impact on it
your driving skills. According to the 884 drivers who took part in our UK driving survey, those who drive a BMW (11%) or Vauxhall (8%) are more likely to give their driving a 10 out of 10 rating.
Additionally, it seems that we are less likely to move away from a familiar car brand as we age, with Rocket Fuel reporting that 29% of the 316 UK car buyers they surveyed admit that the make or model of a previously owned car influenced their next car purchase .
With that in mind, we decided to take a closer look at manufacturers to see if they are as good as people think they are.
Most dangerous
When we asked participants if they had ever been involved in an accident with their vehicle, the manufacturers most likely to have been involved in an accident were Ford (47%) and Volkswagen (45%), while Toyota (77%) was the most likely to be involved in an accident was least likely. ) and Renault (76%). AxleGeeks however, reports that Mini is the least safe car brand on the road.
AxleGeeks analyzed the safety features of all model ranges, including blind spot monitoring, pre- and post-collision safety systems, reversing camera, adaptive cruise control, and lane departure warning systems. They also considered the percentage of model lines with an IIHS Top Safety Pick or Top Safety Pick+ award.
Mini was ranked as least secure, with only 10% of its 2015–2016 lineup earning IIHS awards, compared to 30% of the average lineup. Its models also lacked blind spot monitoring and pre-collision safety systems, while only 10% of models had post-collision safety features, compared to 16.3% for other brands.
Unreliable
The JD Power Initial Quality Study examines problems in the first 90 days of vehicle ownership and determines a score based on the number of problems encountered per 100 vehicles. Although the industry as a whole is improving, some brands still appear at the bottom, while Porsche takes the top spot for the third year in a row.
For another year, Fiat ranks as the least reliable in terms of initial quality, with 161 problems per 100 cars - nearly 50 more than the industry average of 112. Smart, owned by Mercedes-owner Daimler-Benz, was runner-up with 154 reported problems per Vehicle and a new addition because there were not enough Smart owners last year. The rest of the top 5 looked like this:
- Jeep - 141 problems per 100 vehicles
- Land Rover - 134 problems per 100 vehicles
- Mitsubishi - 126 problems per vehicle
Although these reviews come from multiple sources, it doesn't necessarily mean that manufacturers' vehicles are unsafe. There is no substitute for safe driving and it is mostly the driver's behavior that affects a car's life on the road.