All-wheel drive vehicles are in the limelight as the Dakar rally - renowned as the world's toughest motorsport challenge - ruthlessly exposes the slightest weaknesses of man and machine. But just how reliable are the standard 4x4's and SUV's we buy?
British extended warranty provider Warranty Direct went through its records of 50 000 used all-wheel drive vehicles from three to eight years old to find the answers.
Audi's A6 Allroad fared worst, with more than half recording a fault in a typical year - and a third of those problems reported were suspension-related.
At the other end of the scale, the Honda CR-V showed up as least likely to let you down, followed by the Suzuki Grand Vitara and Toyota RAV4.
Mitsubishi and Kia made it a clean sweep for Oriental manufacturers in the top five.
The VW Touareg, despite winning the 2009 Dakar with South African Giniel de Villiers at the wheel, came in fourth-last with a quarter of its faults down to electrical gremlins.
The study used a reliability index that takes into account how often vehicles break down, average repair cost and time spent in the workshop to calculate its overall reliability. The lower the number, the more reliable the car.
The highest-placed European car was the latest version of Land Rover's Freelander, which has historically fared badly in reliability studies.
Warranty Direct's Duncan McClure Fisher said: "It's promising to see improvement from Land Rover but it's telling that the bottom 10 is dominated by European cars and the top of the list populated largely by Japanese vehicles.
"The biggest surprise was the poor performance of the XC90. It's not what you'd expect from a manufacturer with Volvo's reputation but I'm signing cheques every day for XC90 repairs."
With an average repair cost of £595.58 (about R7000) the Mitsubishi Shogun was the most expensive to fix but had a low incidence rate, with less than eight percent a year breaking down.
A third of Nissan X-Trail problems were caused by cooling and heating issues while almost 60 percent of workshop visits for Volvo XC-70 owners were due to suspension breakages.
How reliable is YOUR 4x4 - does your experience tally with the results of the study?