SUV comes top for reliability

Suzuki is celebrating after its second best-selling model in New Zealand scored a 100 per cent reliability record in a UK survey of car ownership.

The Vitara gained the top mark in the What Car? Reliability Survey for 2021, while Suzuki was ranked as the top marque in the independent study.

A total of 27 marques and 139 models were put under scrutiny, with 16,000 drivers of cars aged up to five years responding to the survey.

The Vitara, a five-door SUV, was one of only three models to return a perfect report and Suzuki’s full passenger car and SUV range gained a 97 per cent rating. 

Next on the marques ladder was Lexus on 93.6 per cent, Toyota with 92.4 per cent and Honda scoring 92 per cent.

The latest fourth-generation Vitara is the second best-selling Suzuki model in New Zealand and Steve Huntingford, editor of What Car?, says it has a “faultless reliability record”.

“According to owners, it’s the best small SUV in our survey with not a single Vitara causing its owner any trouble over the last 12 months,” he adds.

The publication said the Vitara was “a compact, five-seater SUV designed to be easy to live with, affordable, practical, with a big boot, low running costs and generous equipment.”