A method for transmitting data in a packet-oriented communications network, in particular of a motor vehicle and to a user terminal configured for carrying out the method. In the method, data packets are transmitted without a guaranteed transmission time for the data packets and with a guaranteed maximum transmission time for the data packets in said communications network. For a data transmission with a guaranteed transmission time, a specific quality of service is reserved prior to the data transmission by reservation request from the sender of the data to the receiver of the data and the data transmission with a guaranteed transmission time is only started once a confirmation of the reservation request sent by the sender has been received. In addition, selected data that is to be transmitted in a guaranteed transmission time is sent directly as a data stream of data packets and a reservation request is sent after the start of the data stream.