COMPANY cars and vans are becoming less reliable according to the 1998 Lex Vehicle Leasing Reliability Survey.

Drivers at the wheel of a Lex car and van between December 1, 1996, and November 30, 1997, stood a one-in-four chance of suffering from a mechanical breakdown according to the UK's largest contract hire specialist.

By assessing the mechanical reliability of its 88,048 strong fleet of L-R registered vehicles, Lex drivers experienced 21,620 mechanical faults over a 12 month period equating to 24.5 Mechanical Breakdowns Per Hundred Vehicles (MBPHV).

That compares to the 1997 Reliability Survey where drivers stood a one-in-five chance of their vehicle breaking down (20.0 MBPHV).

The top fault experienced by drivers in the 1998 survey was with alternators, followed by engine and clutch assembly faults. Ironically alternators caused the most problems for drivers of Lex cars in the 1997 survey.

Only three manufacturers, Jaguar, Chrysler, Jeep and Saab actually saw a reduction in their MBPHV figure compared to the 1997 survey, while the remaining 18 saw their reliability get worse. Saab saw the biggest improvement from 24.8 to 13.7 MBPHV, while Hyundai (16.6 MBPHV) and Alfa Romeo (42.5 MBPHV) joined the survey for the first time.

Commenting on the survey results, Roy Fewster, Managing Director of Lex Vehicle Leasing said: "Obviously we are disappointed with the results, in that the more breakdowns we experience, the more our customers drivers are inconvenienced and the higher our maintenance costs.

"We would have hoped that reliability had improved over last year, but it is now up to us to work with the manufacturers to try and improve this situation," he added.

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