X5 and Yaris Verso top Which car list

BMW's X5 and Toyota's Yaris Verso have come top of Britain's largest reliability and satisfaction survey, published by Which? consumer magazine.

Owners were asked whether they would definitely recommend their car to a friend, a very stringent test of both friendship and a car's quality. The results showed owners of the X5 and Yaris Verso gave a positive response in 92 per cent of cases, while the Mazda MX-5, Lexus IS200, Toyota Yaris, Jaguar S-Type, MINI, and Skoda's Octavia and Fabia also made the top 10.

The survey covered nearly 33,000 cars up to eight-years-old. Consumers give ratings for all aspects of their cars and dealers.

Citroën's Saxo scored the lowest, with only 34 per cent of owners surveyed saying they would recommend it. Citroën's Xsara only scored 37 per cent, while Rover also fared badly, with the 25 scoring 40 per cent and the 45, winning the approval of only 42 per cent of owners surveyed.

In the category of "Best Buys", the Yaris, Yaris Verso and Honda Jazz came top of the superminis. The best medium class buys were the Ford Focus and Honda Civic together with the Nissan Almera and Toyota Corolla.

Nissan's Primera was judged to be ahead of the pack in the large car "Best Buy" class, with the Lexus IS200/IS300 and BMW 3 Series leading the field at the premium end of the scale.

The Jaguar S-Type was the choice in the luxury cars.

The best large cars were the Nissan Primera, Lexus IS200/IS300 and the BMW 3 Series.

The results come as figures show new cars in Britain are now costing 14 per cent less than they did five years ago. The price of new models in August was 2 per cent lower than in August 2002, the Alliance & Leicester car price index revealed.

Industry analysts now expect 2003 to be the second highest year on record for British car sales, bettered only by 2.56 million in 2002.

Private buyers enjoyed £660 million worth of discounts on manufacturer list prices between January and June 2003 - up more than £206 million on the same period last year.

The fall in the price of new cars has also had a knock-on effect with the prices of second-hand cars falling too. The price of one-year-old cars fell 2.6 per cent in August compared with the same month last year, while three-year-old model prices were down 5.6 per cent.