The November results of the Vehicle Reliability Survey have been posted.

Two of the 179 full results are especially intriguing. Other sources of vehicle reliability information give the 2008 Infiniti EX35 and 2008 smart fortwo high marks–the Infiniti even placed first in its segment in one study.

Yet in TrueDelta’s latest results both models receive our new “red light,” to denote a high repair rate. What gives?

Most likely, the recency of the data. Others’ data was collected last winter or spring, when these vehicles were still very new. Our data covers through the end of September.

In the interim, fuel pumps started failing in EX35s, and shifters started getting stuck in park in fortwos. These failures don’t affect every car, but enough of them that the smart has an annualized repair rate of 88 successful repair trips per 100 vehicles, and the Infiniti racks up 136 per 100.

Neither is a major failure, but both sometimes require a tow. In both cases there have been other, scattered problems. But without these the cars would have received much lower (better) scores.

Both are also the sort of problem that an astute manufacturer will have already identified and corrected on recently produced cars. With TrueDelta’s quarterly updates, any improvement will be reflected soon after it occurs, quite possibly with the next set of results in February.