Nissan Juke named Britain's least reliable new car

The pure-petrol Nissan Juke has been judged to be the least reliable car in the UK, with owners reporting huge repair bills.

That is according to Autocar sibling publication What Car?'s 2025 Reliability Survey, which revealed that 24% of petrol Juke owners reported a fault. That gave it the lowest score of all models in the survey.

The survey, which received 32,493 responses from owners of cars aged up to five years old, also found that three in five petrol Juke drivers who suffered a fault were charged more than £1500 for remedial work. It also found that 64% of those who reported a fault with the model had to wait more than a week for a repair.

A Nissan spokesperson told Autocar: “We are pleased to see that Qashqai, X-Trail and Leaf all performed well in their classes, with a 95% or higher reliability score, and all were in the top 25% of most reliable cars overall.

"The Juke result is disappointing, as it differs from our customer data and from other independent sources, and we are discussing this with What Car?.

“Nissan is fully committed to the highest standards of quality and reliability in its vehicles and always values fair and constructive customer feedback.”

The Juke was followed by the new Volkswagen Tiguan, with which 81% of owners reported an issue. Just over two in five of those said repairs took more than a week – although, in all cases, VW covered the cost of repairs. 

Just over half of previous-generation Kia Sportage owners reported problems, with more than 20% of issues being related to the powertrain. Almost half were with a garage for more than a week, although all repairs were covered by Kia.

Meanwhile, the current Hyundai i10, current Hyundai Santa Fe and Toyota GR Yaris all earned perfect scores for zero owners reporting an issue.

What Car? ranked Honda as the most reliable brand, followed by Mini and Suzuki. Lexus, which held the top spot for seven years until last year, when it was pipped by Mini to first place, fell to eighth, tied with Kia. 

MG came last for the second year in a row, although its score of 88.9% – determined by the number of issues suffered by owners, how long they had to wait for repairs and how much they had to pay – represented a significant improvement on last year’s 76.9%.

Joining the Chinese brand at the foot of the table were Nissan (89.9%) and Fiat (90.1%).