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The Most and Least Expensive Cars to Maintain
The most expensive thing most Americans own, after their house, is their car. On average, Americans spend 5% of their income on purchasing a car. Another 5% goes towards ongoing maintenance and insurance costs.
But not every car costs the same to keep it running. And different cars have varying risks of leaving their drivers suddenly immobilized.
At YourMechanic, we have a massive dataset of the make and model of the cars we have serviced and the type of maintenance done. We decided to use our data to understand which cars break down the most and have the highest maintenance costs. We also looked into which types of maintenance are most common to certain cars.
Which Car Brands Cost the Most to Maintain?
Based on estimates of total car maintenance over 10 years
Rank Car-Brand Cost 1 BMW $17,800 2 Mercedes-Benz $12,900 3 Cadillac $12,500 4 Volvo $12,500 5 Audi $12,400 6 Saturn $12,400 7 Mercury $12,000 8 Pontiac $11,800 9 Chrysler $10,600 10 Dodge $10,600 11 Acura $9,800 12 Infiniti $9,300 13 Ford $9,100 14 Kia $8,800 15 Land Rover $8,800 16 Chevrolet $8,800 17 Buick $8,600 18 Jeep $8,300 19 Subaru $8,200 20 Hyundai $8,200 21 GMC $7,800 22 Volkswagen $7,800 23 Nissan $7,600 24 Mazda $7,500 25 Mini $7,500 26 Mitsubishi $7,400 27 Honda $7,200 28 Lexus $7,000 29 Scion $6,400 30 Toyota $5,500
What has been your experience in this regard ?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Bot on Monday July 13 2020, @11:02AM (16 children)
The newer the car, the more money squandered.
The repair itself is not a problem. You spend x on the engine head but you have a new one. Whereas, money spent on electronics is wasted.
The average age of my 2 vehicles is 37 years, no turbos in either, no A/C, no stuff that isn't involved with actually moving.
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(Score: 4, Funny) by gmby on Monday July 13 2020, @11:47AM (2 children)
Ahh... You're just a Bot. You don't need things like AC, radio and seats!
Bye
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @03:50PM (1 child)
What does a bot need a car for? Put the damn wheels on yoself, fool.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday July 13 2020, @07:58PM
My center of gravity is too high for wheels.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @11:56AM (4 children)
Survivor bias.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @12:32PM (2 children)
"survivor bias"
Wow, aren't you the super clever genius. Bias? Makes no sense (as usual). It's an anecdote. How is bias involved in relating experience?
Oh, I get it, Bot has many brand new cars, but is biased in telling only about the older ones.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @01:42PM (1 child)
Whoosh.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @03:05PM
"Whoosh" - the sound of arrogant but moronic talking out your ass.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday July 13 2020, @08:36PM
Of the cars who did not survive:
fiat 124 sport 1969 (coupe, I wouldn't have gotten rid of the spider),bought used after much downtime, stranded once oil decided to leave the gearbox, no trouble afterwards.
fiat 127 1980ish, 500 1971, and lancia Y 1998, no troubles
fiesta 2007 and fiat punto 1994 recurring little troubles
audi 2001 little trouble
funnily enough the only old car I know that had serious trouble was the beetle 1303 cabriolet of my schoolmate which blew the engine, also bought used after probably much downtime.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by ElizabethGreene on Monday July 13 2020, @11:58AM (2 children)
I agree, to a point.
Here I disagree, but I understand why you'd have that opinion. The transition from mostly mechanical engine control systems to mostly electronic systems sucked. Now that we're on the other side of it things are remarkably better than they used to be. I've adjusted points and condenser ignition system, and there is no comparison to a solid state ignition module. If the latter fails within the service life of the vehicle you probably got a bad one. I grumble about the cost of coil packs, but then again I don't have to replace a distributor cap and rotor to get my car to start in the rain. Mechanical carburetors were and still are straight black magic.
I do get annoyed with some of the emissions stuff, but I can't argue that it hasn't made a difference. It's rare to drive behind a car that reeks of unburned fuel now. That was very much not the case when I was growing up.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Monday July 13 2020, @06:25PM (1 child)
I might agree with you on purely technical perspective, but from a marketing POV we have cars using electronics for programmed obsolescence and increasing repair costs. All in the name of safety and emissions. Personally the safer car is the one that makes me quite aware of the fact that I am speeding and doesn't require me to push more weight around to turn or brake. And fuel consumption is not the only variable in the sustainability of an item wrt the environment.
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(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Monday July 13 2020, @11:32PM
Your point on programmed obsolescence is spot on. I'm generally opposed to federal "help" wrt manufactured goods, but I wouldn't mind seeing the federal 8 year/80k Mile emissions component warranty expanded to cover a lot more systems.
As for non-drivetrain electronics... I haven't met an infotainment system yet that wasn't absolute crap.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 13 2020, @12:12PM (2 children)
This ^^^ a thousand times this ^^^.
The table is lacking several dimensions, and the 5% for purchase + 5% for maintenance is extremely dependent on the age of the vehicles, income of the owner, etc.
Case in point: 2002 Mercedes S430 - purchase price new in 2002: $80K. Purchase price used in 2016 with 44K miles: $12K. Previous owners were paying $1.54 (plus dealer commission) per mile just for depreciation. We adopted it in 2016 and have paid $6K in maintenance for the last 60K miles $0.30 per mile for maintenance and depreciation for us - we pay something less than $0.15 per mile for fuel, and probably land just under the federal estimate of $0.55 per mile TCO when you throw insurance on there. But, who does your maintenance? If we went with the dealer, our maintenance costs would have been triple, at least. DIY I could have cut those maintenance costs in half.
Mazda - which Mazda, how do you maintain it? I bought "a Mazda" new in 1991 for $14K, and pure maintenance costs over the last 29 years have been less than $7K - it stranded me, needing a tow, exactly once in 115,000 miles so far (and that one, a timing belt, I knew needed doing, had the parts and tools, was within 30 miles of starting the job, but... sometimes you wait just a little too long...) But, I've put another $14K into that car in modifications, including a turbocharger - so, did my Mazda really just cost $28K to purchase? We bought another Mazda - 16 years old with 105,000 miles - for $2500, have put another $2500 into maintenance over the last 35,000 miles.
All in all, I think our maintenance + insurance costs run quite a bit less than 5% of income, and even if you total all four owned vehicles up against income, they don't come up to 5% of income for purchase, either. Now, when we used to do 1000 mile per week or higher road trips, we would rent - even when starting from home - but that's just a matter of preference, as our local Enterprise found out when they pissed us off and our rentals dropped from 2 or 3 per year to 0.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Monday July 13 2020, @12:43PM (1 child)
The S430s are usually more expensive than their larger displacement brothers. I don't know why. You can buy an S550 cheaper and have way more fun.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 13 2020, @02:59PM
They're all getting really rare - and cheap when they do come up, none of the 2001-2004 era S will fetch over $10K anymore, regardless of miles or condition.
Like I said, we put 60K miles on our 430 in the last 4 years, not really looking for worse fuel economy - sure a 600 would be more fun, but also quite a bit higher cost of ownership - wear out the tires and other things faster, not to mention fuel economy. The 430 has been a hell of a comfortable car for the price, not stranded us yet, and it's fast enough for a family car.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Monday July 13 2020, @12:41PM (1 child)
Oh boy throttle body injection and smog pumps. You must only go out to buy a Sunday paper every week with those vehicles.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday July 13 2020, @08:54PM
I wouldn't care much if they smoked as it seems silly to mind cars when container ships pollute like entire cities and nobody bats an eye. But among the cars I drove the worst was the 2001 audi and the 2007 ford both TD and cat, the others simply don't.
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