The best cars for comfort, technology, safety, practicality and more

The greatest cars have always offered more than the sum of their parts, and that’s a factor in the pleasure – or pain – of buying and owning them. But even so, there are always compromises to be faced, and it’s useful to know where they’ve been made.

Comparing the best cars in individual Driver Power categories allows us to highlight the top performers in areas such as value, reliability, safety, ride and handling, infotainment and more. In fact, we divided the survey up into nine separate categories, each with multiple sub-sections, which allowed us to distil the maximum information from our survey responses.

You can see the top performers by category over the following pages, but remember that a top score doesn’t imply a car is best at a particular job – rather that its owners rate it higher than rivals in terms of their satisfaction with the job it’s doing. Because let’s face it, if you’re buying an SUV, you don’t need to know whether it handles like a sports car, but whether buyers like you say it delivers the goods.

Click the links below for details of the top cars in each survey segment…

• Engine and gearbox
• Infotainment, connectivity and electrics
• Interior and comfort
• Exterior styling
• Practicality and space
• Ride and handling
• Safety features
• MPG and running costs
• Value

Now tell us about your car in the Driver Power survey...