Japanese cars are more dependable than UK cars, according to a new car reliability survey.

Japanese cars took the top seven spots in terms of brand reliability while British marques such as Land Rover and Rover ranked towards the bottom, in the Which? Car Magazine survey of almost 90,000 vehicles.

Honda topped the chart with a reliability index rating of 85%, followed by Toyota (84%) and Daihatsu, Lexus, Mazda, Subaru and Suzuki all achieved a rate of 83%.

British marque Land Rover came joint bottom alongside Chrysler/Dodge with a rating of 67%, Rover was given 70% finishing fifth from the bottom, and MG was rated at 73%.

Vauxhall fared little better at 75%, while Jaguar and Mini received just an average rating of 78%.

And while Honda came out on top, the Swindon-made Honda Civic fell well short of the brand's high standards, coming joint-bottom in the medium cars' reliability table.

The index was compiled using survey questions on breakdowns, faults and niggles (less urgent breakages or failures), on cars of up to eight years old.

Richard Headland, Editor of Which? Car, says: 'Japan continues to show the rest of the world how to make consistently reliable cars, although the new Honda Civic shows they're not infallible.

'Some British-built cars, on the other hand, don't exactly run like clockwork. Land Rover, in particular, needs to raise its game.'

The traditionally higher-priced German marques of Audi, BMW and Mercerdes-Benz only received average reliability scores, while Volkswagen was rated as poor.