Renault averages 1.03 complaints per production run against 3.72 across the market, and its cars reach the halfway point of their complaints at 0 years.
Good year or bad year — the VIN settles it.
- Check any VIN against complaints for its exact build year and plant
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How we measure it
Reliability scores usually arrive as a number out of five with no working shown. We publish the arithmetic instead, because two things about it are arguable and you should be able to argue with them.
Rate, not total. A model that sold three million units collects more complaints than one that sold thirty thousand, and that says nothing about either. So we divide by the number of production runs — the distinct first-eleven-character VIN prefixes on record. Across 1,100,006 complaints and 295,326 runs the market average works out at 3.72 per run.
Age, not year. Every complaint carries an incident date and a model year, so we can work out how old the car was when it failed. That is what the warranty question turns on, and it is why our «worst year» rankings exclude anything built in the last 6 years — those cars simply have not had time to break yet.
What this is not. A complaint to NHTSA is a deliberate act, so this measures serious faults, not paint that scratched. It says nothing about running costs or how nice a car is to own. And an absence of complaints on a rare model means an absence of owners, not excellence.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Renault reliable?
Renault averages 1.03 complaints per production run against 3.72 across the market, with the halfway point of complaints at 0 years.
Which Renault model is most reliable?
Not enough data to rank Renault models.
Which Renault should I avoid?
Not enough data.
Where do these numbers come from?
Complaints filed with NHTSA, the US federal safety regulator. Filing one is a deliberate act, so this measures faults people considered serious — not survey opinions.