Despite exhaustive testing and daunting development budgets, defects in cars still get revealed only after thousands of examples encounter the real world, away from the development tracks and computer simulations.

The European Union has a unit called the Rapid Exchange of Information System, which seeks to alert safety risks for most products on sale in the EU, including cars. These lead to cars being recalled to have remedial work carried out, almost always at the cost of the original manufacturer, not the consumer. It’s a safety-catch for automotive.

The website car-recalls.eu specialises in deciphering the data from the system, and it’s just compiled a list of the most recalled car brands in Europe for last year. Now clearly the companies with larger model ranges tend to have the most recalls, so please bear that in mind when looking at the data. Looking at 30 car brands in total, we start at the brand with the least recalls in 2018, and work our way up to the car brand with the most recalls in Europe in 2018: