The most reliable cars in Britain's company car fleets are revealed in a Fleet News survey covering nearly 800,000 vehicles.

The survey of Britain's biggest contract hire companies reveals that Toyota, Honda and Lexus compete for the top honours in both the most reliable manufacturer and the most reliable model in this year's survey. Only multi-marque leasing companies were included in the survey, covering the most reliable cars according to the lowest number of breakdowns per 100 models on their fleet.

Points were awarded according to the number of times vehicles or models appeared in tables supplied by the leasing firms and for the position in which they were placed. The number of vehicles covered in the most reliable manufacturer survey has topped 790,000 vehicles, while the most reliable models survey covered more than 500,000 vehicles.

Toyota and Honda take the top honours in the manufacturer survey this year, with Honda only narrowly behind the Japanese market leader.

Lexus, the luxury arm of Toyota, comes third, while the first German brand to appear, in fourth, is BMW. Mercedes-Benz follows closely, on fifth, followed by Nissan in sixth, Ford in seventh, and Mazda in eighth. Rounding off the top-10 is Audi in ninth and Mitsubishi in 10th place.

Following its second place to Toyota, Honda evened up the scoring with the Honda Accord taking the top spot as most reliable model, moving up from the fourth place it took last year. The Toyota Avensis is close behind, in second place, followed by the Lexus IS200 and Toyota Yaris, with the Mercedes-Benz E-class rounding off the top five.

Other models just missing out on the top-five include the BMW 3-Series, Toyota Corolla, Ford Ka, MINI and Ford Mondeo.