The Reliability Rating by RepairPal is a measurement of vehicle dependability based on the cost, frequency, and severity of unscheduled repairs and maintenance. RepairPal combines an extensive proprietary database including millions of vehicle repair invoices with additional automotive statistics and predictive data science to develop the most genuine reliability metric in the industry. The Reliability Rating allows you to research dependability and ownership costs related to unscheduled repairs and maintenance in addition to comparing reliability factors against other vehicles and industry averages. Individual factors contributing to a vehicle's composite Reliability Rating include cost, frequency, and severity.

The average total annual cost for unscheduled repairs and maintenance across all model years of a vehicle. Higher average cost alone does not necessarily mean a vehicle is less reliable. For example, parts and labor for your vehicle may be expensive, especially if it is a European luxury car, but if severe issues and annual average visits to the shop are low, that's a good indicator of a reliable car.

The average number of times the vehicle is brought into the shop for unscheduled repairs and maintenance in a single year. This metric is calculated by tracking millions of unique vehicles over multiple years to determine an average number of visits per year for each make and model. Controls were included to omit small routine visits to shops such as for oil changes.

The severity component to reliability measures the probability that a repair will be a major issue. An issue is considered severe if a repair costs three-times the average annual repair cost for all models, an amount deemed prohibitively expensive given the unscheduled nature of the repair. This threshold is higher for premium and luxury brands, which have higher labor rates and parts costs.