10 of the most reliable used cars in Australia

No, it didn’t take us long to get a Toyota on the list, but the Yaris is hard to go past. I know serious motoring journalists and performance-car freaks who have bought multiple Yarises, and recommended dozens more for family and friends.

That’s because the Yaris comes with all the rock-solid reliability you’d expect from a Toyota, plus a bit more flair about its design than the Japanese white-goods-on-wheels maker generally offers (the more recent the Yaris, the more exciting it looks).

A quality, hard-wearing interior only adds to the desirability of this popular model, with well over 200,000 sold.

First released locally in 2005, when Toyota dropped the Echo, the three- but more commonly five-door hatches have become a common sight on our roads, particularly wearing L and P plates, ever since.

CarsGuide’s experts point out that the four-speed automatic could do with another gear, and add that: “Handling of the little Toyota is safe but not exactly inspiring. Which can be a bonus to used-car buyers as it’s unlikely to have been thrashed. Rough sealed roads can challenge the suspension and the ride may be bumpy on occasions.”

It might seem strange to mention the Volkswagen Golf when talking about its fiercest competitor in this country, the Mazda3, but the fact is it’s difficult to recommend any other small car without touching on the global behemoth that is VW’s small car.

The Golf has been a great little car, the perfect city car or small family car, the vehicle that Jeremy Clarkson recommends as all the car anyone really needs, the Swiss Army Knife of motoring, for as long as most of us can remember. In many ways, I’d like to recommend that you buy one, because they are great to drive, and German, but the fact is, there have been far too many reliability issues for the VW to make this list. Many of those issues have involved DSG gearboxes, and clutch packs, so you could suggest shopping for a manual version only, but then there have been engine issues as well.

You might want to just take your chances and buy one anyway, except that you don’t have to, because Mazda built the 3.

It’s hard to overstate just how successful and popular this car has been in Australia since arriving in 2004 - at times it has even been the best-selling vehicle in the country. An even better 3 lobbed in 2009, before a third generation arrived in 2014, so there are a huge number of them available on the second-hand market.

It is also clear that no car that could be this popular for this long is going to carry a reputation as being unreliable, because that would kill sales. The Mazda3 is pretty much a rock-solid option as a used-car buy.

As CarsGuide’s used-car gurus put it: “Excellent styling, the so-called Kodo design, has certainly played its part in the Mazda3's success, but the Japanese company's well-deserved reputation for building reliable, high-quality cars is another major factor.”

The fact that the 3 is damn near as good to drive as a VW Golf helps as well.

It’s not that many lifetimes ago that Hyundai had a very different reputation to the one it now enjoys. A Hyundai Excel never really carried the same happy glow of quality that an i30 does, and yet today, this small car is described by CarsGuide’s own used-car experts as combining “some of the flair of a European machine with the cost advantages of an Asian car”.

Good, cheap, reliable and mechanically sound transport - that’s what the Hyundai i30 has come to mean in Australia since it was first launched here back in 2007. This car has been a large part of why Korean cars are now so much closer to Japanese ones when it comes to public perception, but this was not always the case.

For several years, Hyundai has also been going to the trouble of tuning its suspension and steering for Australian conditions, and for the way we like our cars to feel. This is a major selling point.

Better yet, Hyundai was one of the first companies to offer a five-year/unlimited distance warranty, which passes on from the original purchaser of the car to the second-hand buyer. So, getting one that’s less than five years old is obviously ideal.

No look, obviously no one should buy a car purely because it looks good, but let’s face it, many of us do. And when it comes to choosing a sedan that’s actually genuinely attractive, it’s hard not to walk straight past the ordinary Toyota Camry and into the loving embrace of a Mazda6.

Better yet, the 6 adds to its good looks and practically by being enjoyable to drive, with excellent ride and handling balance. Happily, the Mazda6 was never really bought by fleets, so you’re less likely to find examples that have been belted over many kilometres.

The obvious competitors include the Honda Accord Euro and the Subaru Liberty, neither of which have the visual flair of the Mazda, although both are also enjoyable to drive.

The 6 was launched here in 2002 as a replacement for the also popular Mazda 626 and its build quality has always been excellent, in typical Japanese style, although not as quality in feel, obviously, as a German sedan. You can also take choose to get the 6 as a station wagon, if you prefer that level of practicality over an SUV.

Personally, while I would not want to provide a list of 10 reliable Toyotas you could buy, because it would make me sad, I wouldn’t be too unhappy to write a list of 10 Subarus you could safely choose as second-hand transport.

Many engineers and repairers have told me over the years how few problems Subarus have, and even Porsche is in some awe of how this (relatively) tiny Japanese company manages to do such a good job with tricky boxer-engine technology.

In the case of cars like the Outback, they can also be surprisingly rugged, their all-wheel-drive set-up makes them feel planted and safe on unsealed roads, and provides excellent grip in the wet, even on sealed surfaces. The one letdown of Subarus, of course, is that they tend to look about as attractive as someone who cares not one jot what other people think about them.

They’re also not quite as nicely appointed inside as some of their Japanese competitors, choosing hardiness over flashiness, every time.

While the Outback seems to fall between two chairs, by being a high-riding station wagon, but not quite an SUV, it has long found its fans among those who want to (lightly) go bush in comfort, and who still appreciate the driving pleasure afforded by a (slightly) lower centre of gravity.

In short, if you’re after a station wagon rather than going the full SUV, and you want reliability and value, it’s hard to go past the Subaru Outback.