Losers from the German MOT: This year’s results also warn against the BMW 5 and the Superb

This year’s ranking of the reliability of used cars, which came to the German stations of TÜV SÜD for technical inspection, includes the results of inspections of 9.6 million passenger cars aged 2 to 11 years.

The BMW 5 Series and 6 Series from the middle of the last decade need to be watched

| Photo: BMW

The quality of the cars is improving, at least according to the criteria they consider important technicians from the German organization TÜV. While last year, the average proportion of serious defects in vehicles that arrived for roadworthiness testing was almost 20 percent, this year it was only 17.9 percent.

You can see our cars, which were the worst in a total of five age categories, in our photo gallery. We chose the 25 of the most popular on the used car market.

However, a coronavirus pandemic is partly to blame. As a result, many inspected cars drove fewer kilometers. Nevertheless, engineers very often found major problems with lights and chassis.

Probably few will be surprised that the individual models of the Dacia brand are again on the tail of the charts of individual age categories, and together with them also some Renault or Fiat models. These are usually small city cars or personal versions of small vans. The acquisition of some types of large family models can also be problematic. Specifically, Ford Galaxy, Volkswagen Sharan, Seat Alhambra or Citroën C4 Picasso can be mentioned. These worst cars usually have twice the proportion of serious defects compared to the average in a given category. Compared to the best rated cars, it is at least three times higher average.

Among the oldest evaluated used cars, ie those who are now 11-12 years old, at the very bottom of the ranking were also cars that were produced in hundreds of thousands of series and are still widespread in the fleet in the Czech Republic. The 95th was Dacia Logan and the 94th Fiat Panda, but only seven positions higher are the French city hatchbacks Renault Clio and Peugeot 207. The unfocused ratings were also scored by the Ford Focus and Nissan Qahsqai.

In the category of cars aged 9-10, the situation is quite similar: The Fiat Panda holds the primacy of the least reliable used just ahead of Dacia Logan. Deep in the field of losers are also Fiat Punto, Renault Clio, Citroëny C4 Picasso and C3, as well as Volkswagen Passat, Hyundai i20 and premium BMW 5 and 6 series cars.

Cars from the Czech Republic usually on average

The results of this Munich carmaker are worth paying attention to. Unfortunately, they drew attention to themselves not very positively. In the category of cars that were manufactured and put into operation around 2013-2015, the BMW 5 and 6 ended almost at the bottom (seventh position from the end) and the worst red zone, which can also be likened to the school five, also reached the model BMW 2 Active Tourer.

Even worse, BMW results in a rating of about five-year-olds. The 5 and 6 series models ended up at the very last -126. place. Only a hair better, but still with five, the X5 and X6 models, again the BMW 2 Active Tourer and also the smallest SUV with the X1 designation, performed at TÜV SÜD stations.

Unfortunately, in the case of BMW, no significant quality improvement in the TÜV SÜD criteria occurred in the ranking of cars that came for technical inspection for the first time – usually after three years of operation. This is especially true again for the BMW 5/6.

Unfortunately, the flagship of the Mladá Boleslav carmaker, which is the Superb, also did poorly in this category. Out of 128 evaluated cars, it finished in 114th place. Otherwise, cars manufactured in the Czech Republic (with the exception of the Cologne C1 minivan and the Hyundai i30 – always in only one age category) did not make it to the worst red zone this time.

And it remains to add other cars, which are good to pay attention to the categories of younger and youngest used cars. So in the case of approximately seven-year-old models, these are the Dacia Duster, Renault Mégane, Volkswagen Tiguan and Kiu Sportage.

The five-year-old cars include Suzuki Jimny, Kiu Ceed, Renault Scénic and Mini. Finally, in the overview of the least reliable three-year-old cars, we also found Fiat Tipo, Nissan X-Trail, Ford S-Max, Ford Mondeo and, of course, again Dacie Logan, Duster, Dokker and Sandero.

And which car, on the other hand, dominated the overview this year? Like last year and the year before, it was a luxury medium-sized SUV Mercedes-Benz GLC. Tips for reliable used cars in individual categories (small cars, family cars, SUVs and so on) will be available next week on the Automix.cz website.

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