Maybe we need to find a common definition of 'reliable'. To me that means the car does what it's supposed to do which is getting me from A to B. If it does that it's reliable, if it fails, it's not. My car has never ever not driven, so it has been 100% reliable.
I completely disagree with your definition and your assertion that your vehicle has been 100% reliable.
I see many people here posting every single one of their little issues they had. Every car has little issues and the older they get the more of these little issues are coming up. I know many people who are loving their old cars and how reliable they are never letting them down. They have many little things getting worn out, rattles and things like that. They would never say their car is unreliable.
Per
Consumer Reports' Car Reliability FAQ, what they ask is
How Is the Survey Conducted?
The Consumer Reports National Research Center conducts the survey each spring. In the questionnaire, we ask subscribers to note any problems with their cars that occurred in the past 12 months. They are asked to identify problems that they considered serious (because of cost, failure, safety, or downtime). We ask them to include problems covered by warranty, but not the ones resulting from accident damage or due solely to recall. Respondents check off problems from a list of trouble areas, ranging from the engine and transmission to climate system, brakes, electrical system, and power accessories. They also tell us specifically what their experiences were to help us understand precisely what problems they are having. (See the full list of trouble spots below.)
Car Reliability Histories lists the average problem rate at the bottom.
For me, if a vehicle needs any sort of repair be it DIY, visit to a dealer, independent garage, mobile service, etc. and it is not a wear item/consumable (except in the case of wear item that wore out far earlier than expected), then that's counts as a repair. Have a lot of them within a short ownership span from new? That starts counting as unreliable.
Battery degradation can be a grey area though, for some and given what I said above. Some will say Leaf batteries are "unreliable". No. They're not. They still work but due to degradation, the car's range autonomy is reduced, sometimes by a lot. In hot climates, they can degrade rapidly, esp. the chemistry that was in Leafs that built before 4/2013. It is almost unheard of for a Leaf battery pack to fail (to charge and/or propel the vehicle) and require replacement.
Virtually all Leaf battery pack replacements (I'd say 99+%) are for degradation, many covered under the capacity warranty.
Cars that I personally owned since late 2001 (the rest were assigned to me by my parents and one was a hand me down) have NEVER ever required 7 or 8 repairs for the same thing. People who are used to known reliable makes and models of Japanese cars rarely need more than the prescribed maintenance (often just oil changes, inspections and in some cases other fluid replacements) and replacement of wear items (e.g. tires, brakes, wipers) and consumables like air filters (cabin and engine) within the first say 60K miles. By 100K miles, I still wouldn't expect many needed repairs.
So, by your definition (for example, on a hypothetical vehicle), if power windows fail, one needs 4+ drive units replacements due to noise, one needs new door handles, the MCU dies, the MCU develops bubbles, one needs repeated repairs for snapping and messed up trim (e.g. examples at
Driver side Falcon wing door hinge snapping when opening), all of which requires visits to the SC/mobile service, the vehicle is still "reliable"?
If my car kept throwing check engine lights, leaked oil, leaked transmission fluid, emitted weird noises, power locks and windows failed, AC failed, heater failed, cruise control failed, power seats stopped working, stereo stopped working and I had car another that had none of these within the same age and mileage range (assuming both started from new), the former is certainly less reliable than the latter.
