E-Class judged Europe's most reliable out-of-warranty car

The 2006-09 Mercedes-Benz E-Class has been judged Europe's most reliable car by an aftermarket warranty provider.

The facelifted E-Class addressed a range of reliability complaints with the model introduced in 2003, and according to the survey it seems the work by Mercedes-Benz paid off.

Warranty Direct analysed around 20,000 live policies on European cars aged three to six years for its Reliability Index website.

At the other end of the reliability scale, 85% of Land Rover Discovery (2004-2009) models covered by Warranty Direct recorded a fault in the last 12 months, followed by the Bentley Continental GT (2003-2010), of which 78% needed attention.

Skoda builds the second most reliable used European car, the Fabia (2007-) – only 15% of owners will be paying for repairs each year. Next most reliable is the Smart ForTwo (2007-) and the Volvo C70 (2006-).

Fleet News will publish its annual FN50 Reliability Survey of more than half a million contractt hire and lease cars in November.