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posted by Fnord666 on Monday July 13 2020, @09:44AM   Printer-friendly
from the money-pit-on-wheels dept.

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

RankCar-BrandCost
1BMW$17,800
2Mercedes-Benz$12,900
3Cadillac$12,500
4Volvo$12,500
5Audi$12,400
6Saturn$12,400
7Mercury$12,000
8Pontiac$11,800
9Chrysler$10,600
10Dodge$10,600
11Acura$9,800
12Infiniti$9,300
13Ford$9,100
14Kia$8,800
15Land Rover$8,800
16Chevrolet$8,800
17Buick$8,600
18Jeep$8,300
19Subaru$8,200
20Hyundai$8,200
21GMC$7,800
22Volkswagen$7,800
23Nissan$7,600
24Mazda$7,500
25Mini$7,500
26Mitsubishi$7,400
27Honda$7,200
28Lexus$7,000
29Scion$6,400
30Toyota$5,500

What has been your experience in this regard ?


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  • (Score: 2) by epitaxial on Monday July 13 2020, @12:35PM (4 children)

    by epitaxial (3165) on Monday July 13 2020, @12:35PM (#1020260)

    Did they factor in labor prices for the German cars? I've own a few Mercedes (used) and parts aren't that expensive. I'd never take a used BMW or Audi though.

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Spamalope on Monday July 13 2020, @07:38PM (2 children)

    by Spamalope (5233) on Monday July 13 2020, @07:38PM (#1020595) Homepage

    My '01 Mercedes SLK (had it from '04-'17 when I was rear ended) had an electric seat switch that stuck out too far. A shop broke it (and didn't own up to it). All that was broken was the plastic, removable post. Benz would not sell that part, or even the switch. Unavailable. You had to buy the lower seat assembly for $650 (which sounded substantial but was actually a cheap plastic bezel with the switch pre-mounted).
    Chrysler Crossfires are coup versions of the car so I checked to see if the seats were the same. They were, and those seat assemblies were only $250! (still robbery for a .50 plastic post, but not $650 at least). However, Benz altered all the plugs so they weren't electrically compatible. (I can solder... so that didn't stop me but deliberate sabotage of interchangeability to enable price gouging still ticks me off - can you tell?)

    The convertible top hydraulics, Benz used substandard seals that failed very early. The interior panels were glued with silicone caulking/adhesive instead of permanently bonded and the entire interior fell apart despite the car being climate controlled garage kept. The interior was coated with this rubberized coating that sluffed off so half the interior panels looked like the car had a disease.

    The hoses and seals on the engine turned hard and brittle in heat, so a good thing engines don't get hot right? (bleh) But they were cheap and easy to change at least, and with quality replacements it was fixed just like with the convertible seals - except for the interior coating the poor parts could be replaced with quality and the problem never re-appeared.

    But then the chassis was well made. The metal parts at least were alloy and a letter grade or two better than US cars. My GF had a Malibu the same year as my Benz, and it disintegrated. The electric system failed all over, switches and wiring harness connectors... once those started to go it totaled the car. The failure points kept failing repeatedly. Even the paint was so thin it oxidizing down to primer. She had to get rid of it in '11 and it looked like it'd been through a war despite a similar life. (the Benz looked good from the outside but for nose rock chips)

    • (Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday July 14 2020, @02:58AM

      by driverless (4770) on Tuesday July 14 2020, @02:58AM (#1020987)

      the car being climate controlled garage kept

      And Yoda owned?

    • (Score: 2) by Tokolosh on Tuesday July 14 2020, @02:44PM

      by Tokolosh (585) on Tuesday July 14 2020, @02:44PM (#1021258)

      Mercedes in '01 was Chrysler, not Mercedes. It is well-known to avoid models from the Chrysler-Benz era. But that does not excuse the crappiness.

  • (Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday July 14 2020, @02:51AM

    by driverless (4770) on Tuesday July 14 2020, @02:51AM (#1020978)

    Post-1980s BMWs are worth more as a collection of replacement parts for other post-1990s BMWs than a car (unless they've got better in the last ten years or so).

    Which says a lot about them really.