The most reliable small car scrappage buys

With the Government’s scrappage scheme pushing more small cars onto the road, insurance specialist, Warranty Direct, has revealed the Honda Jazz and the Toyota Yaris as the most reliable Superminis on the road.

According to data compiled from Warranty Direct’s (warrantydirect.co.uk) 50,000 UK policies on 4-7 year old cars, only one in 10 of the diminutive Jazz models will break down in the average year. The Yaris is close behind, with a 13% chance of failure, and Ford’s top-selling Fiesta is third – and the cheapest to fix, with an average repair cost of just £91.

At the other end of the scale, nearly half (48%) of the SEAT Ibiza models covered by Warranty Direct recorded a fault. Almost 40% of those reported were suspension-related

The success of the scrappage scheme has seen a huge growth in the small car sector. Mini Segment registrations trebled in July, compared with 2008, and Supermini volumes now account for a whopping 37.5% of all registrations, as motorists seek to make the most of the scheme discount.

Overall, small cars have long held sway over their larger, heavier cousins when it comes to reliability. While the Supermini class in total has an average breakdown rate of 26%, cars in the 4x4 and Large Family categories are more likely to let you down, with failure rates of 33% and 31% respectively.

With a collective average repair cost of £208.99, cars in the Supermini category are generally also among the cheapest to keep on the road.

One in seven Skoda Fabias will suffer a cooling and heating system failure, while the Renault Clio is almost twice as likely as its Supermini contemporaries to have an engine-related breakdown, with almost 10% of all its failures being traced to the motor.

Meanwhile VW Polo owners report an unhealthy number of brake problems with more than one in 10 recording a fault.