Britain's best-selling car keeps owners waiting more than a week for repairs

The Jaecoo 7 was Britain's best-selling new car in October. It recorded 3,412 registrations, ahead of the Ford Puma on 3,369, and it sits second for the year on 42,885, behind the Puma's 46,295 (SMMT, 5 November). The market it topped was 152,730 cars, up 5.4% and the eleventh consecutive month of growth.

The sales performance is not in dispute. The repair record is.

In What Car?'s 2026 Reliability Survey, the Jaecoo 7 scored 71.9%, sixth from bottom among 225 models from 30 brands (What Car?, 22 September). Thirty per cent of owners reported a fault. Nearly two-thirds of those faults took more than a week to put right.

The car at the top of the chart

The Jaecoo 7 has topped both plate-change months this year, March and September, and it took October as well. Its parent, Chery, sells the Omoda and Jaecoo brands through a franchised dealer network that has expanded at speed, and the cars have found buyers on equipment and price. Chinese brands took almost a quarter of UK registrations in September (our report).

The appeal is easy to state. A family SUV with a seven-year warranty for less than the price of a mid-spec European rival (OMODA&JAECOO, 1 October). The cost is less visible until something goes wrong, and then it tends to arrive as a wait rather than a bill.

Sixty-five per cent off the road for a week

What Car?'s survey, conducted with MotorEasy, covers cars up to five years old and asks owners how many faults they had, what the repair cost and how long it took. Across all 225 models, only 81% of faults were fixed for free, down from 95% a year earlier. Twelve per cent of repairs cost owners up to £500, against 4% in the previous survey. Three per cent cost more than £1,500, more than double last year's 1.4% (What Car?, 22 September).

The Jaecoo 7's figures are worse than the average. Three-quarters of its repairs were free, one in five cost between £51 and £500, and 5% cost between £751 and £1,000. Every car in the sample was young enough to be inside its new-car warranty, which is why What Car? asked why any owner was billed at all.

The time off the road is the number that matters most to anyone who needs a car for work or family. For 65% of the affected Jaecoo 7s, the repair took more than seven days. For a quarter, it took between one day and a week.

The faults owners reported are spread across the car. Non-engine electrics accounted for 17% of reports, bodywork 13%, engine electrics 13%, the sat-nav and infotainment system 13%, and the electric motor 9%. That pattern makes repairs harder to plan, because one model can need a software fix, a trim part and a panel from three supply routes.

Why a panel takes months

The Scotsman reported this morning that deliveries of some components, body panels in particular, are taking months to arrive from East Asia, with owners waiting up to 16 weeks for repairs (The Scotsman, 8 November). Martyn Rowley, executive director of the National Body Repair Association, told the paper that parts availability remains a major concern and that long repairs carry costs for insurers, fleet operators and anyone paying for a courtesy car.

There are structural reasons for the delay. A new brand can arrive with a dealer network and a national parts warehouse, but the depth of stock needed for every panel, bracket and trim piece takes years to build. Some East Asian manufacturers supply complete sections, such as a full side or a boot floor, rather than individual pressings, which raises the price of the part and the time to source it. Repair methods and technical data also have to reach independent bodyshops, not only franchised dealers.

Reliability and repairability are different things, which is why the survey table needs reading carefully. The least reliable car in the same survey was the Volkswagen Tiguan on 55.3%, a model with a deep parts network behind it. The Jaecoo 7 scored higher than the Tiguan and still takes longer to return to its owner.

The insurance consequence

Insurers price on repair cost, repair time and the chance that a damaged car is written off rather than mended. Where any of those is unknown, they either charge more or decline the risk. Carwow asked 10 insurers for quotes on eight models. Five declined to quote for the Jaecoo 7, and the five that did averaged £858 a year against £692 for a Volkswagen Tiguan (Carwow, 26 February). The Skywell BE11 fared worse. Nine of the 10 insurers declined, and the single quote came in at £2,203.

That gap should narrow as claims data builds and repair standards are agreed. The principle still holds for any new brand. The list price is only one part of the cost of ownership, and the insurance quote is the part that tells you what the trade thinks of the repair network. Our guide to electric car insurance sets out the wider pattern (our guide).

The back-up is being built

The response from the brands has been to build the infrastructure that established manufacturers already have. OMODA&JAECOO opened eight regional parts hubs on 1 October, run by dealer groups and stretching from East Kilbride to Exeter and Plymouth, and added a vehicle-off-road partnership with the RAC in September (OMODA&JAECOO, 1 October). The hubs hold genuine parts closer to the workshops that fit them.

MG shows what a settled network can do. Its S5 electric SUV scored 98.3% in the same survey, the highest of any electric SUV, and MG was the most improved brand, moving from last place in 2025 to ninth overall (What Car?, 22 September). A brand in its third year in Britain is not in the same position as one in its tenth, and the newest Chinese brands are only now reaching the age where independent garages see them in volume.

What it means if you are buying

The checks are straightforward. Get an insurance quote against the exact car, using its registration rather than the model name, because insurers price by specification and repair group. Ask the dealer which regional parts hub covers your area and what the current lead time is for a front wing or a rear bumper. Read the warranty for what happens to a courtesy car during a long repair, since a week off the road is common and a month is possible.

The value case has not disappeared. A Jaecoo 7 still undercuts most rivals and carries a long warranty, and the survey's fault rate is not out of line with several established models. The calculation changes if you cannot manage without the car, or if the insurance quote lands several hundred pounds above the class norm.

The wider market is repricing as the fleet ages. Auction values fell 5% year on year in October to £7,244 (our report), and the trade is watching how the first Chinese cars hold up once the warranty ends. Repair times and parts prices will be part of that answer.