Porsche 911 review - Reliability & safety

Porsche 911 reliability

While the Porsche 911 itself didn’t make it into our Driver Power survey, the brand did finish top of our brand survey for the second year in a row, with owners telling us they like their cars’ infotainment systems, interior quality and versatility. Owners were also very satisfied with the design and the way the cars drive. 37% of Porsche owners reported a fault in the first year of ownership, which is a little higher than average.

Build quality is a Porsche cornerstone and the latest 911 certainly feels as though it lives up to the brand’s reputation in this department.

Safety

While there’s no official Euro NCAP rating for the Porsche 911, its safety credentials are impressive. There are more safety and driver assistance systems available than before, including automatic emergency braking (AEB) with pedestrian detection, lane-keep assist, front and rear park assist with optional 360-degree camera views, blind spot monitoring, night vision assist, lane-change assist and adaptive cruise control with stop/go functionality.

A new standard Wet setting is a clever addition to the driving mode line-up, using microphones in the wheel arches to tell when the road is wet; various car settings like traction control and electronic stability programme can then be adjusted to suit with the push of one button. The system works well in practice and is an extra step towards on-road safety that the 911’s rivals can’t quite match.

LED headlights come as standard to offer a great view of the road ahead in the dark or inclement weather, while optional LED Matrix versions further enhance forward visibility by dimming for oncoming traffic or the car in front, but lighting up everything else. The 911’s new signature rear LED light bar also increases visibility to other road users – as well as looking great.

There are two full-size front airbags, plus Porsche Side Impact Protection (POSIP) which adds side-impact protection elements in the doors, thorax airbags in the seat bolsters, plus head airbags in each door panel. The front passenger seat has ISOFIX points for a child seat and the airbags can be disabled for this purpose.