The Rover 75 is pleasing people who bought it two years ago and shares fifth place with the IS200 from Lexus, the champion of this year's JD Power survey.

It is now produced by MG Rover though the final development and initial production took place during BMW's control of the Rover Group.

Under the new format, cars from prestige manufacturers have done best which makes the achievement of second place by the Toyota Yaris a remarkable one. It gave its customers more ownership satisfaction than the BMW 7 Series, and everything else in a list descending to 182.

There was less happy news for MG Rover in the lower orders with the MGF – its only MG sportscar – trailing at 173. The 1959 Mini and worst-rated Vauxhall Sintra (which have both ceased production) were also in the bottom 10.

Mercedes-Benz was only one place above bottom with the V-class, the van-based MPV which has done nothing for its image. The Ford Explorer also transpires to be a loser and the Nissan Serena was always likely to do badly.

Fiat Auto, trying hard to raise its image, will be disappointed to have two models in the final 10. It can get away with the Fiat Ulysse but would have hoped for better with the Alfa Romeo GTV/Spider.