pslewis

1 Honda S2000
For the third year in the trot, screaming VTEC power wins

2 Honda Jazz
Honda's yin and yang at the top of the table. Sensible, but great

3 Skoda Octavia
Old-gen Octavia, a masterpiece of dependability

4 Skoda Fabia
No fluke for Skoda, the Fabia is cheap and charming

5 Lexus RX300
Pseudo-SUV is so solid, and perfectly sorted by dealers too

6 Lexus IS200/300
Owners of the old-style IS are still smiling about Lexus service

7 Skoda Superb
Stretched Passat ranks 67 places above the original

8 Fiat Panda
A long awaited return to tiny car form for Fiat. Ciao bambino!

9 Mazda MX-5
The one before the MX-5 grew up on us. Still did the business

10 Jaguar XK
All-aluminium XJ6 and 8 justify every penny of owners' outlay

No Subaru Impreza ..... but the hairdressers car comes in at a comfortable 9th!

corradoboy

I've just bought two of the no.4

vRS's currently with 130bhp and 228lbft, soon to have 180bhp and 320lbft Jabba rear ARB's, Eibach front ARB's, dampers and springs and Seat PD160 intakes

Ain't no Scoob, but 50-70mpg, good residuals, easy resale, reliability and good dealers make up for it a little. Nothing makes up for them looking ugly though

stuh1981

My wife is laughing at me as her mx-5 is 9th and my impreza is nowhere to be seen.

Cant believe Fiat Panda is 8th

SPEN555

Dave,

Don't believe the bull$hit quotes on mpg. I would imagine you will be lucky to see 50mpg. I had a Lupo which should have done up to 78mpg, it would do that if I pushed it off a cliff with no fuel! .... 45mpg if lucky in normal commute driving.

corradoboy

Steve gets 45 'round town in his wifes, and easily 60+ on a steady mway cruise. Not reliable or scientific, but when I flipped the trip computer to mpg after the spirited test drive it read 74 It's sure to be better than the Coarser I'm using now, as I have my foot burried in the carpet constantly just to make it move and getting probably about 25mpg, which the Scoob got if I took it steady. Will be collecting mine in a couple of weeks and I'll do some decent tests with varying useage to see what I can get. FWIW, I'm probably gonna get it Revo map'd with one of the maps a powerless ultra-economical one for use by the learners Not sure if this is do-able yet, but worth an ask.

Attu

Skoda do well dont they.

gillyz20let

load of bollocks. octavia???? one of the dullest cars ever made.

scoobynutta555

That is without doubt one of the worst top ten lists for cars I have ever seen.

Dracoro

Last two posters - what is your justification? The list is about customer satisfaction with their cars. It is NOT a "what's the best car" list. i.e. what's the ownership experience like? reliable, good dealers, car does what it was meant to etc.

nik52wrx

Are these types of tables only dependant upon those people that can be arsed to vote. The wifes Rav 4 has been faultless but nobody has asked us about it.
Who votes for these tables ?

scoobynutta555

I was responding to a list of 10 cars purported to be Top Gear's Top 10 cars. I see no mention of a customer satisfaction top 10, ownership top 10 etc, even though that's probably what the list is about.

Even so, I stand by my comment, what a crap top 10.

Skittles

Agreed, a magazine's top10 is very different to a list of owners' top 10. These top 10 lists are pointless as non premium cars always do well as you expect less.

Dracoro

Well, it is a PSLewis thread, always bound to not give the full story

Anyway, the Top Gear, JD Power, AutoExpress surveys are just that, surveys of customer satisfaction. The alway ask to to enter your thoughts (if you own a car in the age bracket - this is the main flaw IMO, 2/3/4 year old cars are on the whole OK, what about 5/6 year old ones etc..anyway, that's another debate) via post or the website.

You may not have been asked about it nik52wrx, however if you've watched top gear or read any of the mags then you would have.

Anyway, they are surveys, always limited by those that respond to them (the warranty surveys are equally valuable and flawed as well) but it's up to the consumer to make of it as they will. For example, how do youy know what a reliable car is? Word of mouth? mag reviews? website reports? survey findings? warranty company findings etc? and the list goes on. Word of mouth is usally quoted as 'reliable' or 'gospel truth' but ultimately it's a survey of sorts with a very limited quota in comparison.

Dracoro

Hard to ascertain which way round to interpret it. Yes "premium" brands owners may have higher expectations. On the other hand, they have no place being a "premium" brand if they continuously fall below expectations. And if they do continously fall below expectations (see merc c1990s!) then why on earth do they still keep buying the things if they aren't satisfied. e.g. Lexus are a "premium" brand and in just about every survey they always meet the expectations of the consumers. Most of their customer are previous Merc owners too.

From all the surveys, reviews, people you know, own experiences etc. you get a picture of sorts of what's what. Take from it what you will, agree with them or not etc. and buy the car you want. People still always perceive Alfas as unreliable (rightly or wrongly, although that point is irrelvant), yet why? In most cases from their own "surveys" from what they've heard in the media, from people they know, form owners they've known, from car mag surveys etc.

Fabioso

Customer Ownership experience......Honda and Skoda take the top 4 spots....No surprises there then

Matches my ownership experience. The Honda S2000 and the Skoda Fabia vRS being the only 2 cars I've had from new out of the 8 or so from new cars I've owned in the last 10 years that were faultless.

Skoda dealership customer service is well above average compared to my experience of all the other main dealers I've dealt with over the years. So it doesn't surprise me at all that they get 3 spots in the top 10.

mattvortex

Exactly-everyone who goes out and buys a diesel says something like, "it,ll do 60mpg" as if its going to do that all the time- yes , im sure it does do 60mpg on a very light throttle on level road- im sure even my scooby would do about 40mpg un der those circumstances but , overall its going to much less.
My brother golf tdi averages 36-41 mpg overall- Though suppose he could come on here and quote the maximum manufacturers combined figure of 52.3 mpg and pretend it does that no matter how you drive.

scoobynutta555

My g/fs Golf tdi averages 44 mpg and all she does is urban driving, stop start. I regularly did 60 mpg average in the tdis I had. I can't see why your brother would get such crap mpg unless he rags it like a loon in an urban setting.

Duck_Pond

I've had a Fabia vRS for just over a year now, and I average 49mpg, and I don't drive it like a granny.

If, and that's a big "if", I do drive carefully, then it can do over 60mpg, which is not something I have ever found to be the case with my Scooby, That is supposed to be able to do 30mpg. Does it f**k. Best I have ever got out of it is 27mpg.

So I am one of the people who says "It'll do 60mpg" because it can do.

I'm also one of the people who says "It'll do 10mpg" when I'm talking about the Scooby.

corradoboy

I had 32.75mpg out of the Scoob on a run home from Devon, driving like a saint with no right foot I used to average about 20, with mid teens feasible on a blat and even less on track. With a 50%+ improvement available in the Scoob with careful driving I feel it is prudent to expect similar from the Fabia when I get it, so if most achieve 45-50 in normal use then 60+ should be fair on a steady run IMHO. Will report back in a few weeks with lots of numbers and bore you rigid either proving you all wrong or with egg on my face

Duck_Pond

Yours is a newer Scooby though - my brother had a blobeye for a while, and he got better economy out of it than my old nail.

When you get the Fabia, don't watch the mpg on the computer as you drive - it ranges from 120+ down to less than 30

corradoboy

Used to play with the trip comp on my old 'Rado, resetting it at the top of hills and getting it up to 99.9mpg all the way down

Will do some proper brim to brim over mileage tests, varying driving styles for each when I get it

STEVECHAPS

When I drive the fabia in the winter in traffic (school run, to bank/post office etc. I get 45mpg all day. It averages 40-41 though because for some reason t'wife can't get better than 35 (mpg & mph!). In the summer you should see 2-3mpg improvement.
We did the run to Bradford-Scarboro last week & got 62.5mpg there & back.
Dealers are great, car is well made, reliable, brisk, a great all round package which at 2 years old has lost £3k in depreciation! Mainly badge snobs who don't like it/ dismiss it out of hand.
It's not the best car we've owned (Mazda's/Nissans/Cossies/Scoobies/Nobles(eek)), but £ for £ it IS.

STEVECHAPS

Mesmeric! 199.9 down to 12 or so