5 Of The Most Reliable Car Brands To Consider If You’re Buying A Used SUV

Car prices have become crazy in the past few years. For instance, the 2016 Nissan Murano’s new price was somewhere around $29,000. Fast forward ten years, and the current entry-level 2026 Nissan Murano will set you back nearly $42,000. A three-to-five-year-old SUV also doesn’t feel nearly as far behind a brand-new one as it once did.

With that in mind, it becomes reasonable to instead consider buying something used, especially since depreciation can gut a modern car’s value in just a few years, so much so that you can even buy used full-on luxury SUVs under $30,000, for the same price a new Nissan Murano used to cost. However, buying used comes with its own set of caveats.

Arguably the two biggest ones are warranty and reliability. With age and mileage, cars develop problems and require servicing, maintenance, and repairs, all of which can negate the very logic of used being the sensible option. To make the most of your savings, you should consider the most reliable and most trouble-free SUV brands that break down the least. Here are five of the most reliable car brands to consider if you’re buying a used SUV.

For many people out there, reliability and Toyota often go hand-in-hand, and it seems like little has changed in that regard. Consumer Reports‘ latest brand reliability rankings have Toyota back in first place this year, with Subaru — last year’s No. 1 — dropping to second. Toyota’s win comes out of a data set covering close to 380,000 vehicles across 25 model years, from 2000 up through some early 2026 releases.

RepairPal backs that up from the repair-shop side. At $441 a year, the average Toyota costs noticeably less to keep running than the $652 average for other brands across the board, and the site’s own reliability score — 4.0 out of 5.0 — lands Toyota in the top quarter of the 32 brands it tracks. For used SUV shoppers, that combination of strong survey scores and low repair costs is what keeps models like the RAV4 and 4Runner in such high demand on the used market.

The Toyota RAV4, Highlander, and 4Runner are among the best used Toyota models you can buy. Maintenance is also a big part of why Toyota SUVs stand out from the crowd. For example, for the RAV4, CarEdge puts ten-year maintenance costs at $6,004, while for the Honda CR-V, it’s $7,636 over the same span — still pretty decent overall, but notably more than the RAV4.

Subaru placed second in Consumer Reports‘ latest brand rankings — the same spot Toyota took from it after Subaru won the year before. RepairPal tells a similar story from the repair-shop side: at $617 a year, the average Subaru actually costs less to maintain than RepairPal’s $652 average across all brands it tracks, yet the outlet’s 3.5-out-of-5.0 score still only lands it 14th overall, with a 13% chance any given repair turns out severe — once again, behind Toyota.

Model-level numbers track close to that. CarEdge puts the Subaru Outback’s 10-year maintenance and repair cost at $8,633, while the Subaru Forester comes in slightly lower at $8,609, beating the industry SUV average by $97. Neither figure undercuts the segment average by much, so Subaru’s reputation for toughness doesn’t necessarily translate into the cheapest repair bills on this list.

Longevity data adds another angle. Torque News‘ reporting on iSeeCars’ longevity study puts the average SUV’s odds of reaching 250,000 miles at 15% — the Subaru Outback beats that at 22.3%, good for 1.5 times the segment average. For used buyers, the Outback and Crosstrek make up some of the strongest picks in Subaru’s used lineup, each backed by solid reliability ratings and standard all-wheel drive across nearly every trim.

If you want a reliable used SUV, but you also want one that is luxurious and gives you an experience you’d be hard-pressed to get from either Toyota or Subaru, Lexus might be right up your alley. Lexus took third place in Consumer Reports‘ latest rankings, a result closely tied to Toyota’s engineering influence across its luxury division.

The repair-cost data backs that up. CarEdge estimates $7,110 in average maintenance and repairs over a Lexus’ first 10 years — $5,429 less than what luxury brands run on average — even though there’s still an 18.75% shot at a major repair somewhere in that decade. JD Power data points in the same direction, with Lexus topping its 2025 U.S. Vehicle Dependability Study for the third year running.

Zooming into the brand’s best-selling model, CarEdge estimates the RX 350’s 10-year cost at $7,840 — $6,515 below the luxury SUV average, according to the outlet. That’s a wide enough gap to matter for anyone cross-shopping the RX against a German rival with a similar sticker price but a reputation for pricier upkeep.

Lexus has sold the RX since 1998, and it remains the brand’s best-selling model today, so used examples aren’t hard to come by. It’s one of the picks in our roundup of the best used Lexus models, alongside the ES sedan. Therefore, if you don’t want to sacrifice luxury but still don’t want to compromise on reliability, Lexus is worth considering.

Consumer Reports slotted Honda fourth in its latest rankings, just behind Lexus. Brand-wide, CarEdge estimates Honda’s average 10-year maintenance and repair cost at $6,799 — $2,172 below the industry average across all automakers — with a 19.95% chance of a major repair over that period, one of the better figures among mainstream brands.

The CR-V doesn’t stray far from that number. CarEdge puts its 10-year cost at $7,636, beating the industry SUV average by $876, with a 21.74% chance of a major repair. RepairPal separately rates Honda at 4.0 out of 5.0 overall, ranking it first among 32 brands. Moreover, SUVs such as the CR-V also appear among the most reliable vehicles in general.

iSeeCars‘ longest-lasting brands study ranks Honda third among all automakers for likelihood of reaching 250,000 miles, trailing only Toyota and Lexus, and Honda is one of just four brands overall — along with Toyota, Lexus, and Acura — to score above the study’s 4.8% industry average, a gap researchers attributed largely to the brand’s SUV and truck lineups.

Reliability data at the brand level only tells part of the story once a car has a fair number of miles on it, though, which is why our breakdown of the most reliable and affordable used Hondas is worth a look too — it flags specific model years to target or skip.

Mazda doesn’t crack Consumer Reports’ new-car top five, but its separate used-car analysis puts Mazda alongside Toyota and Lexus as the three strongest brands once the data narrows to older, higher-mileage vehicles. JD Power‘s 2025 U.S. Vehicle Dependability Study ranked Mazda second among mainstream brands at 161 problems per 100 vehicles — just ahead of Toyota’s 162, behind only Buick’s 143.

RepairPal has the average Mazda costing $462 a year to repair, with a 10% chance of severity — good for a 4-out-of-5 score, 5th out of the 32 brands it tracks. The CX-5 itself does even better. Edmunds cites RepairPal’s model-specific numbers: CX-5 owners pay just $402 a year in repairs against a $485 midsize SUV average, with an 8.1% severity rate versus the class’s 13.5% — good for a 4.5-out-of-5 reliability score and 4th place out of 32 midsize SUVs.

CX-5 owners on Edmunds rate the current model 4.4 out of 5 across 38 reviews, while the outlet’s expert testers give it a 6-out-of-10 score. A 22.65% chance of hitting a major repair by year 10 comes with a $7,906 total maintenance bill over that span, per CarEdge — $606 under what a typical SUV costs. Brand-wide, CarEdge puts Mazda ownership $1,590 below the all-automaker average, at $7,381 over the same span.

The CX-5 also holds resale value well, per our roundup of Mazda models with strong value retention — built from RepairPal reliability data checked against iSeeCars and CarEdge depreciation figures — making it a strong pick for buyers who want reliability without a Toyota or Honda price tag.

Reliability is never a clear-cut metric. Individual ownership experiences, trim levels, engine and transmission choices, model years, region, and plenty of other factors can sway how reliable any given vehicle actually turns out to be. However, when you look across some of the most prominent publications in the space — Consumer Reports, iSeeCars, CarEdge, RepairPal, Edmunds, Torque News, and JD Power — a handful of brands consistently rise to the top.

It’s also worth noting that virtually every brand on this list leans heavily on its SUV lineup to drive sales and turn a profit, which is exactly why SUV-specific data mattered so much in putting this together. Lexus is the only luxury automaker to make the cut, which isn’t always the case when it comes to reliability rankings — most lists like this skew almost entirely toward mainstream brands.

We used the publications above to make sure this list is credible and grounded in real ownership data rather than reputation alone. We also leaned on our own past reporting on these brands to ensure the picks here are actually useful for anyone shopping the used SUV market, not just accurate on paper.