RepairPal surveyed automotive buyers to understand how they think about reliability during the purchase process. While parents are most concerned with the safety of their children, other consumers focused on the cost of repairs as the critical component of reliability. While costs of ownership such as car payment, insurance, and gas can be easily predicted, it is much harder to anticipate out-of-pocket costs associated with repair and maintenance. Cost is a major factor in our Reliability Rating, and top brands like Honda, Hyundai, and Kia scored well due to their lower costs of ownership. In addition to cost, other components included within the final Reliability Rating include frequency and severity of repairs.

The average total annual cost for unscheduled repairs and maintenance across all model years of a vehicle. Higher average cost alone does not necessarily mean a vehicle is less reliable. For example, parts and labor for your vehicle may be expensive, especially if it is a European luxury car, but if severe issues and annual average visits to the shop are low, that's a good indicator of a reliable car.

The average number of times the vehicle is brought into the shop for unscheduled repairs and maintenance in a single year. This metric is calculated by tracking millions of unique vehicles over multiple years to determine an average number of visits per year for each make and model. Controls were included to omit small routine visits to shops such as for oil changes.

The severity component to reliability measures the probability that a repair will be a major issue. An issue is considered severe if a repair costs three-times the average annual repair cost for all models, an amount deemed prohibitively expensive given the unscheduled nature of the repair. This threshold is higher for premium and luxury brands, which have higher labor rates and parts costs.