Cars are a lot more reliable these days than they were just a few decades ago. In fact, it is rare to see a car pulled over on the roadside waiting for a tow truck…and it is common for them to reach the 250,000-mile mark.
That reliability doesn’t come cheap—the average new car costs over $50,000 as of late 2025—but those car buyers do at least tend to get many miles for their money. How many miles depends in no small part on which car they buy.
So which are the most reliable car brands? And within those brands, what are the most reliable used cars? Car-research company iSeeCars.com recently did a new study to determine just that.
iSeeCars.com analyzed data for more than 174 million cars. The average odometer reading for each vehicle was calculated at each yearly age, and a proprietary model based on these average mileages was developed to estimate the likelihood that each vehicle would survive to various mileage thresholds. To determine which brands build the longest-lasting vehicles overall, the odds of reaching the 250,000-mile milestone for each specific model and generation was calculated and then averaged across each brand’s entire lineup, weighing the results by how common each model is on the road. To see the entire study, go to iSeeCars.com/longest-lasting-car-brands-study.
Bottom Line asked our iSeeCars.com expert Karl Brauer to explain the results of this recent study and identify the most reliable cars now…
The rising tide of automotive reliability has lifted virtually all brands. With just a few exceptions, even automakers that once sold famously problem-prone cars have improved dramatically. But without question, some automakers remain more reliable than others.
Identifying which brands are most reliable can be tricky, because there’s more than one way to define automotive reliability—you can measure the number of miles a vehicle can be driven before it takes its final trip to the scrapyard…or how many significant mechanical problems a vehicle experiences during its lifetime.
Here are the seven most reliable car brands when you factor in both of these considerations…
1. Toyota
Toyota continues to live up to its long-standing reputation for industry-leading reliability. An impressive 17.8% of Toyotas sold exceed a quarter million miles, easily the best of any automaker. In fact, six of the seven vehicles with the best odds of reaching 250,000 miles are Toyotas, including the Sequoia, 4Runner, Highlander Hybrid and Tundra, which each have a 30% or greater chance of reaching that mileage. The Tacoma and Avalon land high on the likelihood-of-reaching-250,000-miles list as well. Five of those ultra-long-lasting Toyotas are SUVs and pickups…the Avalon is a sedan.
Meanwhile not a single Toyota model appears on a recent list of most-recalled vehicles—recall rates are a reasonable proxy for the overall number of mechanical problems a car owner is likely to encounter.
One side benefit: Because of Toyota’s well-deserved reputation for reliability, resale values usually are excellent. Used-car buyers correctly conclude that a reasonably well-maintained Toyota with 100,000 or 120,000 miles on its odometer still has a lot of life left in it.
2024 Toyota Tacoma Limited
2. Lexus
Lexus is the auto brand that comes closest to matching Toyota’s reliability. That’s not surprising because Lexus is Toyota’s luxury brand. A Lexus is less likely than a Toyota to reach 250,000 miles—12.8% of them do so—but that’s not because Lexus vehicles are less reliable than Toyotas. It’s because luxury-car owners tend to drive their cars relatively few miles each year. The Lexus IS is especially long-lasting, with a 27.5% chance of reaching 250,000 miles—it’s the only non-Toyota to claim one of the top spots on the odds-of-reaching-a-quarter-million-miles list…with the Lexus GX and RX hybrid not far behind.
Not only are there no Lexuses on recent lists of most-recalled models, the brand dominates lists of the least-recalled vehicles—one recent report concluded that a remarkable seven of the 20 overall least-recalled vehicles are Lexuses, including four of the top five. Those four Lexus models—the ES 250 luxury mid-size sedan and the hybrid Lexus ES300h, RX450h and NX 300h—experience only around 10% as many recalls as the average car over their lifetimes.
2025 Lexus ES
3. Honda
Honda often is cited as the automaker that comes the closest to matching Toyota’s reliability, and the data confirms that reputation. An impressive 10.8% of Hondas reach 250,000 miles, led by the Ridgeline pickup, Pilot SUV and Odyssey minivan. Even the value-focused Honda Civic, available as a sedan or hatchback, has a 10.9% chance of reaching a quarter-million miles, an astonishing achievement for car with a base price that’s roughly half that of the average new car—it’s very tough to make a car that is built both to be affordable and to last…and if you’re shopping for a new car, it’s very tough to beat the Civic on a dollars-per-mile basis.
2026 Honda Passport TrailSport
4. Acura
Acura is Honda’s luxury brand, and like Toyota’s Lexus, it delivers the strong reliability of its parent company. A laudable 7.2% of Acuras reach 250,000 miles—well short of the top three automakers on this list but well ahead of any other car brand—and there are no Acuras on a recent list of most-recalled vehicles. The Acura ILX and MDX are among the make’s most long-lasting models.
If your priority is to buy an extremely reliable vehicle, then the obvious options—Toyota, Honda or those companies’ luxury brands—continue to be excellent…but other automakers are closing the gap, and the one that’s doing so most impressively is General Motors, which dominates the remainder of this list.
Acura MDX Type S
5. GMC
GMC is the top non-Japanese automaker when it comes to building vehicles that last. A solid 4.6% of GMCs reach 250,000 miles, which sounds low compared with the elite Japanese makes above but tops all of the world’s other automakers. The GMC Sierra 2500HD is particularly durable, with a 22% chance of reaching the quarter-million-mile mark. It’s fair to note that GMC has a bit of an advantage in these rankings because it builds exclusively trucks and SUVs, which tend to be more durable than passenger cars. Overall, pickup trucks have a 13% chance of reaching 250,000 miles, compared to 4.3% of SUVs and just 2.6% of passenger cars. That said, plenty of automakers are focusing on trucks and SUVs these days, and very few of them can match GMC’s reliability. GMC fares well when it comes to recalls, too, though GM’s 6.2-liter V8 engine was subject to a major recall recently. Note: Teslas also have a 4.6% chance of reaching 250,000 miles, a sign that this relatively young US automaker is rapidly improving its build quality…but based on recall rates it seems too soon to include Tesla on a list of the most reliable car brands.
GMC Sierra 2500HD
6. Chevrolet
Chevrolet has taken the reliability lead among US automakers. The conventional wisdom that Japanese automakers tend to make the most reliable vehicles remains accurate, but the rest of the world is undeniably closing the gap. An impressive 19.2% of Chevys reach 250,000 miles, a figure topped only by Toyota. In part that’s a reflection of the fact that Chevrolet sells lots of pickups and large SUVs, which are more likely than cars to reach lofty mileage totals. But Chevy isn’t the only US automaker to sell a huge number of utility vehicles, and the domestic competition falls well short of Chevy when it comes to the odds of reaching a quarter million miles. Chevy’s Silverado 1500, Silverado 2500HD and Avalanche pickups all post particularly impressive mileage figures, as does the Chevy Suburban, a large SUV. Meanwhile, you won’t see any Chevy model on the list of the 25 overall most-recalled vehicles—but you will find five Fords. Clearly Chevy is doing something right.
2025 Chevrolet Silverado 1500
7. Cadillac
Cadillac is in a virtual tie with Chevy and GMC when it comes to building vehicles that last 250,000 miles—4.5% of Caddies reach this odometer reading. That makes sense, since Cadillac belongs to General Motors, just like Chevy and GMC. Cadillac is GM’s luxury brand, and it has a well-deserved reputation for building high-quality vehicles—especially when it’s compared with European luxury brands, which as a group have an equally well-deserved reputation for building unreliable vehicles. Cadillacs often are built on the same solid, reliable bones of the GMCs and Chevys mentioned above. Cadillac’s popular Escalade large SUV is the automaker’s most long-lasting model. Also: If you’re wondering about Buick, the fourth General Motors brand sold in the US, it lags well behind its GM stablemates in terms of reliability—just 0.6% of Buicks reach 250,000 miles.
2026 Cadillac Escalade
