BBC Top Gear Car survey 2005

A lot of threads are asking the same question "what car should I buy?"

So I thought this might be a good link to find your car:

NB: this is a UK survey, so a lot of the cars are big petrol engine cars, as UK has 165 pounds road tax for a 2 litre or a 6 litre! , so if this was an Irish survey, I would reckon these cars would be lower on the list.

click on the page numbers at the bottom page 1 is the lowest car, page 20 is the highest listed car. enjoy!

http://www.topgear.com/content/features/stories/2005/11/stories/01/1.html

Re: top gear Car survey 2005

Great link BigE, Was very surprised to see that skoda had 3 cars in the top 10. Its great that they are finally getting the recognition they deserve!!!!

Yahoo...I knew my decision to buy an Octavia all those years ago was right!!

It worries me to see BMW/MERC/AUDI/VW cars down below 30 places! why do they charge/we pay too much for these cars?????? and most of the cars above these on the list are cheaper?

In my personal opinion bmw/merc/audi have become status symbols and are alot more to do with the badge then the actual car itself. Due to this the cost of repairs/spares are heavily over priced in comparision so some of the top ranked cars.

VW always had a name of getting a basic car (no added extras) but with superb performance and an engine that lasts forever but INMHO this is no longer the case since they started to outsource works. If you look at the problems in the 99-02 range of polo's and golf's for example.

Is it correct and I have heard it from more than one source that there is a profound difference between England and Ireland due to the fact that the majority of English cars are fleet owned and serviced and the Brit's give much poorer servicing to ordinary motorists.

On the contrary over here in Ireland the majority of cars are privately owned and if a garage wants to look after its customers we in general get a better level of service and this can show as a perceptible difference in car satisfaction.

e.g. a Brit thinks his opel is poor due to the garage ignoring the individual but looking after the fleet customer whilst over here the Irish guy thinks he has a grand opel because he is looked after by the garage?

N Solo

Thanks for that, didn't know all those cute Pugs were actually not that nice after all - I had started looking for a 2001-2003 Peugeot 206, but I guess I rather get a Skoda or Hyundai (I always knew they are good cars!)

A colleague at work with my made this observation on the survey " The important underlying fact is that if you are prepared to buy a Skoda and drive it in the first place, then you are easily pleased.
Hence it's position in the customer satisfaction table." There you go!!

Well Squonk, I'm afraid your colleague at work is mistaken, or else has never driven a modern Skoda. I've owned many cars over the years, from a knackered old Mazda 323 to a "premium" BMW 525 and have only recently bought a Skoda Octavia because I finally saw the light about badge snobbery.

The Octavia is essentially a VW Golf (not a Passat as some think) except better put together, bigger, better equipped and much more reliable. Its also bettter to drive (see any motoring magazine review) and cheaper to run.

Of course their is the added element of self satisfaction at not having swallowed the high priced marketing of the "premium" brands.

My apologies to your colleague in case he was actually making an informed observation and in fact had a bad ownership experience with a Skoda.

I'll just climb down from my high horse now!

I like the way Skoda takes the pi$$ out themselves in the UK adds.
I am seriously considering looking at a Skoda Octavia vRS over a Golf GTI next time I change cars, I wouldn't have done that a couple of years back.


It's not all skoda at the top, there are 7 Japanese cars in the top 10: honda/lexus(toyota)/Subaru

N Solo, I don't think the uk survey was total influenced by dealer customer service, only 20%, this is the breakdown of the survey:

"Each car is given an overall satisfaction score out of 100. This is made up from:

Build quality (22%)

Craftsmanship (22%)

Driving experience (19%)

Ownership costs (17%)

Customer care (20%)"

I think a major difference would be volume of cars in UK verses Ireland.
And fleet cars figures in the UK have made a difference to this survey

It would be interesting to see an Irish version of this survey.

Skoda became very good cars after VW took over.
But are they still "Skoda's" or are they more "VW"?
VW dropped everything "skoda" in a "skoda" (thanks, God!), and put in their experience and expertise... ....but they made a big mistake, they never change the badge!!!.

aah the octavia vRS, i am afraid to have test drive as they are so damn affordable.