We’ve updated the Car Reliability Survey stats to cover through the end of 2011, which puts them around eight months ahead of other sources of car reliability information. This time around we have full results for 603 model / model year combinations and partial results (based on small sample sizes) for another 518.
I’ll have more comments over the next week or so.
For now I’ll note that the Nissan LEAF electric car and the FIAT 500 have both been extremely reliable so far. The sample size for the latter is small, 20 cars, but only a single repair has been reported for the bunch. While that one repair did involve the engine, it was early on, nearly a year ago.
Not looking good: the new Volkswagen Passat. Our sample size is also small for this one–again 20 cars–but the stat is so high that it’ll likely remain worse than average, even much worse, in future updates with larger sample sizes.
To view the latest stats: