The Honda Jazz is Britain’s most reliable new car scoring 95% in the latest Which? reliability survey.

There was not a single breakdown and only a handful of faults and niggles out of the 406 models sampled. Not bad for a car that costs as little as £8,795.

Seven cars came in equal second place with 92% for reliability: Honda’s Accord and CR-V, Mazda 3, Renault Clio, Toyota Corolla, Vauxhall Corsa and Subaru Forester.

No luxury car managed a ‘good’ rating for reliability. BMW’s 5 Series and the Jaguar S-type both score 83% although they were ‘average’ overall. Even the Mercedes-Benz E-class has its fair share of problems, with 32% of owners needing repairs in the last 12 months.

The least reliable new car in the survey was Ford’s MPV, the Focus C-Max, which scored 78%. Others rated poorly for reliability are the Jaguar X-type, Nissan Primera, Renault Megane and Renault Scénic which all managed just 80%

. Which? also assesses satisfaction with servicing and repairs at franchised car dealers. The brands performing well for model reliability also score highly for customer satisfaction.

Lexus sets the standard —more than three quarters (78%) of owners are very satisfied with servicing and repairs. Porsche scores well with 73% while Honda comes third with 70%.

Several prestige brands are near the bottom of the table. Alfa Romeo (joint bottom with Chrysler on 31%), Jeep (34%) and Mercedes-Benz (45%) all leave much to be desired when it comes to customer satisfaction with repairs and servicing.

The reliability scores are a blend of breakdowns (50%), faults (25%) and niggles (25%) recorded over a 12 month period on cars up to two years old. Higher scores mean more reliable, lower scores mean less reliable. Breakdowns are given more weight as they are particularly inconvenient. A ‘fault’ means something had to be replaced - for example, a failed heater fan. ‘Niggles’ are annoying problems, such as squeaky cabin trim, that don’t put the car off the road. On average, 5% of all new cars broke down in the last year, 27% had faults and 19% had niggles.

The owners’ survey was sent to 80,000 Which? readers in January 2006 and data was collected on 32,550 cars.

Dealers rated for servicing and repairs

Percentage of very satisfied customers (sample size shown in brackets)

78% Lexus (203)
73% Porsche (52)
70% Honda (1837)
69% Hyundai (255)
68% Mini (225)
67% Subaru (219)
66% Toyota (1957)
65% Suzuki (162)
64% Skoda (540)
62% Kia (125)
61% Volvo (649)
60% Mazda (495)
59% Jaguar (448)
59% BMW (1050)
58% Daihatsu (36)
58% Mitsubishi (191)
56% Saab (308)
55% Audi (743)
55% Nissan (1084)
54% Daewoo/Chevrolet (82)
54% Rover (377)
53% Smart (62)
52% Vauxhall (1463)
50% Citroën (741)
9% Land Rover (271)
49% Seat (264)
48% Ford (2257)
47% Peugeot (1005)
46% Renault (1042)
6% VW (1491)
45% Mercedes-Benz (912)
44% Fiat (273)
43% MG (94)
34% Jeep (44)
31% Alfa Romeo (96)
31% Chrysler (74).