How reliable are a given manufacturer's cars? Well, you could go to Consumer Reports to find some information, or you could go to J.D. Power. Consumer Reports gathers data from owners of the cars as does J.D. Power. The problem with J.D. Power is that their data also includes information from owners about their "problems" with the cars that are really things they just don't like. What about data directly from a company that offers extended warranties for cars?

That would be Warranty Direct. They offer data to subscribers from their experience with 450,000 cars in the United States and Britain. The cars that are included in the data are between three and nine years old because the early reliability problems are covered by the manufacturer's warranties and that's not likely to be shared with anyone unless it results in a recall in the United States.

The data presented in the following table comes from warranty claims made by owners. The figures are based on the number of reported failures for every 100 policies sold. Note that both Land Rover and Jeep -- those at the bottom of the table dismiss the survey's findings as being unrepresentative. How can they say that?

	Manufacturer	Claim Rate
1	Mazda	8.04%
2	Honda	8.90%
3	Toyota	16.78%
4	Mitsubishi	17.04%
5	Kia	17.39%
6	Subaru	18.46%
7	Nissan	18.86%
8	Lexus	20.05%
9	MINI	21.90%
10	Citroën	25.98%
11	Daewoo	26.30%
12	Hyundai	26.36%
13	Peugeot	26.59%
14	Ford	26.76%
15	Suzuki	27.20%
16	Porsche	27.48%
17	Fiat	28.49%
18	BMW	28.64%
19	Vauxhall (Opel)	28.77%
20	Mercedes-Benz	29.90%
21	Rover	30.12%
22	Volvo	31.28%
23	Volkswagen	31.44%
24	Jaguar	32.05%
25	Skoda	32.12%
26	Chrysler	34.90%
27	Audi	36.74%
28	Seat	36.87%
29	Renault	36.87%
30	Alfa Romeo	39.13%
31	Saab	41.59%
32	Land Rover	44.21%
33	Jeep	46.36%

Japan dominates these real-world reliability tests. It is interesting, though, that it is Mazda that is at the top of the table, not Honda or Toyota. It is more interesting that of the top eight, all are Japanese except Kia. Also it is significant that Mazda and Honda are clearly ahead of the rest of the manufacturers. Just eight to nine percent of their vehicles need to have a warranty claim settled in a year.

The statistics show that Toyota owners have almost twice as many warranty claims as Honda owners and that number eight on the list, Lexus, has many more claims than Toyota -- one fifth of Lexus owners have a problem with their cars.

It is known that MINI had early problems with their cars, but apparently the problems have been solved when the cars come out of the manufacturer's warranty. MINI claims the top spot on the chart for European marques.

Yes, there are some European marques in this survey because cars covered come from Britain as well as the U.S. The problem with an all-encompassing survey like this is that it is less significant to a U.S. buyer then. For example, the numbers for Ford include not only their U.S. models that aren't sold in Europe as well as the European models that aren't sold here. It is possible that the ones made here are more or less reliable than those made and sold across the sea.

Maybe you shouldn't be interested in Renault and Seat. But Seat (and Skoda) are really Volkswagens, but are made in different plants. But then many of the Volkswagens sold in the U.S. are made in Mexico, not in Germany.

It is kind of scary that you are more than five times as likely to have problems with your Jeep than with your Mazda.

Autocar magazine paid for more information about the particular problems that some of the marques have. They chose ones spaced from the top to the bottom of the chart. Warranty Direct publishes their information about eight different categories of problems.

	Mazda	Porsche	Jaguar	Land Rover
Air Conditioning	5.83%	5.00%	2.75%	3.38%
Axles & suspension	41.67%	20.00%	44.91%	3.07%
Braking System	8.33%	1.00%	6.62%	13.45%
Cooling & heating	none	11.00%	22.94%	5.37%
Electrical	29.17%	21.00%	22.94%	13.45%
Engine	12.50%	21.00%	6.14%	18.46%
Fuel System	4.17%	9.00%	4.43%	2.30%
Transmission	4.17%	12.00%	6.62%	2.30%

On the rare occasion that a Mazda owner made a warranty claim, the problems were most likely to be found in the suspension system, followed by the electrics, and the engine.

Jaguar, on the other hand, suffered from relatively few engine problems, while Porsche owners found that the engine, electrics, and suspension accounted form the majority of faults. It is odd to find that Porsche figures are all even percentages. It seems like the number of Porsches involved in the survey are small.

At the bottom of the table, engine problems accounted for nearly half of all reported Land Rover failures, while just nine percent of Jeep owners (not shown in the table) had the same problems. I would worry about engine problems because those could easily be problems that stop the vehicle from running, rather than a problem that can be fixed when the owner chooses to.

This seems yet again to show that European marques have significantly more problems than Japanese marques. Maybe all those buyers of Toyotas and Hondas are right. The question I would ask a Volkswagen, BMW, or Mercedes is just why the Japanese can build more reliable cars than they do at competitive prices? Is it that the Germans need to make more profit on each car they sell, or is it something else?