Revealed: The most trusted car brands in 2020

A new report has highlighted how much UK buyers trust car brands, as well as gender differences in what marques are the most trusted.

The CarGurus Car Buyer Trust Index report used the views of 2,183 car buyers to rank 21 car marques based on five key trust-building factors. These are integrity, transparency, genuineness, social conscience and reliability. Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Ford took the top three spots. Toyota, Volvo, BMW, Kia, Vauxhall, Mini and Honda make up the rest of the top ten.

Though 20 of the 21 marques included got their spots based on sales data from the SMMT, Tesla got a token entry as ‘a brand of topical interest’. It placed 12th overall.

The gender differences: Men don’t trust Tesla

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Curiously, there are some stark gender differences concerning the trustworthiness of brands. Men ranked Mercedes, Kia and Volvo in their top three. However, women, had Audi and Ford in joint-first and Toyota in third. Meanwhile Kia, second-placed for men, was all the way down in 15th for women. By contrast, while women ranked Mini fifth, the brand ranked 15th for men. 

Interestingly, women ranked Tesla a chunk higher than men at 7th, compared with 18th. Men actually put Tesla only above the poor performing French and Italian marques, Renault, Peugeot and Fiat. Renault and Fiat were one thing men and women could agree on, making up two of the bottom three for both genders. BMW was the only marque that placed exactly the same for both genders, in eighth place.

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“For consumers, having trust in a purchase – and who they are buying it from – is fundamental to the buying journey,” said Chris Knapman, CarGurus UK editor.

“Therefore, we created the CarGurus Car Buyer Trust Index to help gain a deeper understanding of how trust is built, and the extent to which it informs car-buying decisions.

“The Car Buyer Trust Index provides unprecedented insight into the role that trust plays in the car buying process.”

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Overall Brand Performance