The standard
How we rate vehicles — and what we refuse to score
Most car ratings end in a single number. We don't publish one, because a single number hides the judgement calls inside it and can't serve a retiree doing 5,000 km a year and a rideshare driver doing 40,000 at the same time. Here is every component instead, each labelled with where it came from.
The three rules
No overall score
There is no “8.2/10” here and no way to compute one. You weight the dimensions for your own situation, because only you know which ones you actually care about.
Every figure is labelled
Measured, derived or judgement — shown next to the number. Readers forgive judgement that's labelled. They don't forgive judgement disguised as measurement.
“Not assessed” ≠ “bad”
Where we don't hold the data, we say so. A blank is never quietly rendered as a poor result, and we don't fill Philippine gaps with global proxies.
What the labels mean
A figure published by the manufacturer or a regulator. We record it; we did not compute it.
Computed from measured figures by a formula we state. No new information is added — only arithmetic.
Our editorial assessment. Reasoned and explained, but not a measurement. Weigh it as opinion.
The dimensions, and how much of the fleet each covers
Coverage is published rather than hidden. A dimension below 35% is shown per-vehicle but never ranked or highlighted — ranking two vehicles out of forty-five is an anecdote wearing a table's clothes.
Starting price. Only comparable WITHIN a market — a US sticker price and a Philippine SRP contain different taxes and duties, so we never rank one against the other.
Ground clearance, wading depth and approach/departure angles, combined into a single measured index. Physical measurements of the same thing, with no competing test standards — the cleanest data on the site, and the dimension global reviews ignore entirely.
kWh per 100 km, derived from battery capacity ÷ published range. It inherits the test cycle of that range figure, so it is only comparable between cars measured on the SAME cycle.
WHOLE-VEHICLE cover in years — not the longest term on record. An EV's high-voltage battery is typically covered for 8–10 years while its whole-vehicle cover runs 3–5, so taking the maximum would rank a battery warranty against a bumper-to-bumper one. Battery cover is reported separately.
How many faults we have documented against this vehicle from primary sources. THIS IS NOT A RELIABILITY SCORE and is never ranked — see the note below on why counting bulletins inverts the answer.
Our assessment of dealer reach, parts availability and independent-shop familiarity in the Philippines. This is judgement, labelled as judgement. It is also the factor that most often decides an ownership experience outside Metro Manila, and no international review covers it.
Why we don't score reliability
This counts what regulators and courts have published, not how reliable the vehicle is. Well-scrutinised vehicles in large markets accumulate records; obscure ones do not. An empty record means nobody has published a finding we could source — it is not a clean bill of health, and there is no Philippine equivalent of a large-scale reliability survey to fall back on.
Concretely: counting bulletins would penalise the Toyota Hilux for an Australian Federal Court finding covering roughly 264,170 vehicles, while a model nobody has investigated would score perfectly. Documented-issue count measures scrutiny, not reliability — so we publish the record and let you read it.
The standard applied
Eight Philippine-market vehicles across both pillars. All eight carry a local peso SRP, so price is genuinely comparable within this set. Marked cells lead on that row only — there is no total, and more marks does not mean a better vehicle.
| Vehicle | Purchase price M | Terrain & flood capability M | Energy use D | Warranty M | Documented fault record M | Parts & service network (PH) J |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Toyota Hilux | ₱1,900,000 | 72 | Not assessed | 3 yr | 1 documented | Assessed |
| Toyota Fortuner | ₱2,300,000 | 73 | Not assessed | 3 yr | 1 documented | Assessed |
| Ford Ranger | ₱1,900,000 | 78 — best in this set | Not assessed | 5 yr | 1 documented | Assessed |
| Mitsubishi Montero Sport | ₱2,200,000 | 72 | Not assessed | 3 yr | None documented | Assessed |
| BYD Atto 3 | ₱1,638,000 | Not assessed | 12.6 kWh/100km | 6 yr — best in this set | None documented | Assessed |
| BYD Dolphin | ₱1,438,000 | Not assessed | 11.1 kWh/100km | 6 yr — best in this set | None documented | Assessed |
| BYD Sealion 6 DM-i | ₱1,598,000 | Not assessed | Not assessed | Not assessed | None documented | Not assessed |
| BYD Seagull | ₱968,000 — best in this set | Not assessed | 9.6 kWh/100km | Not assessed | None documented | Not assessed |
Leads marks the best figure in this set for that row. Not assessed means we don't hold the data — it is not a low score. Dimensions below the coverage threshold are never marked at all.
What we deliberately don't rate
- Reliability as a score — no Philippine large-scale reliability survey exists, and counting bulletins inverts the answer. We publish the documented record instead.
- Resale value — we have not sourced a credible Philippine depreciation dataset. Rather than quote one we can't stand behind, we say so.
- Servicing cost as a comparison — Toyota Philippines publishes fixed-price packages; most brands don't. We report it where it exists and refuse to rank it.
- “Value for money” as a number — it's price divided by something, and which something you pick decides the answer. Price and efficiency are shown separately so you can do that division yourself.
The dimension we'd most like to add is real running cost per kilometre, measured rather than estimated. We have exactly one so far — a Montero Sport in the Cordillera at ₱10.70/km over 12,204 tracked kilometres. Want yours computed from your own figures instead of ours? Use the running-cost calculator.
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