About our survey

We asked our online members and 10,000 of our Consumer magazine members about appliances they’d bought new since 1 January 2006. We wanted to know the brand of each appliance, the year it was bought, whether it had needed repair and what went wrong on the last occasion. Problems caused by accident or misuse of the appliance, power surges or even mice chewing the wiring weren't counted as a fault.

We received 15,219 responses – our thanks to all those who took part.

We analyse only those brands for which we receive more than 50 responses (see Brands rated for a list of brands appearing in each appliance group). For each brand we calculate the reliability score – the percentage of appliances that have never needed repair. The score is adjusted for age so a brand won’t be disadvantaged if a lot of owners have older appliances (these are more likely to have experienced problems).

We then compare the reliability score of the brand with the reliability score of all appliances of that type. To get a "better" or "worse" rating, the brand’s reliability must be statistically different from the appliance’s overall reliability.

The appliances we surveyed include:

• Kitchen appliances - dishwashers, stoves and cooktops
• Laundry & cleaning - washing machines and vacuum cleaners
• Electronics - camcorders and mobile phones

We also asked members to rate the after-sales service they received.