Which are some of the easiest and cheapest luxury cars to maintain? Buying a car is only the first step in spending money on it: maintaining, insurance, and repairs are an inevitable part of any car owner’s life.
Since luxury cars already cost too much at the start, do not expect maintenance to be the cheapest, and especially not insurance. There are other options if you are just looking for the least expensive cars to maintain in general, such as Honda or GM, but since we are here, we will go through the cheapest luxury cars to maintain, some of them being among 11 Luxury Car Brands and Parent Companies. Among that list would also be some of the most expensive car brands to maintain, where at the top 3 places are unsurprisingly BMW, Mercedes and Ford.
There’s also always the option of buying an used luxury car, of course depending on mileage and the overall condition of a vehicle. Some of the most reliable used luxury cars under $10,000, or even less are BMW 3-Series, Mercedes-Benz E-Class or Infiniti G35x for example. Even being cheap to buy at first sight, a Mercedes or BMW would not be as cheap to maintain at a long distance.
But what are all the costs concerning maintaining a car? Regular maintenance is the important thing in order to prevent some damage and keep your vehicle running properly. That concerns basic things such as checking if there is some leaking, checking windscreen wipers, tire pressure, signal lights, etc. which you can check by yourself. Other checking and repairs are of course done in a repair shop. As the car ages, cost of maintenance rises. Some average car annual maintenance is only about $200-300 in the first years, and rises up to $2,000 in the 13th year for example. Speaking of age, some of the cheapest used cars to maintain are actually not such a bad choice to reconsider, like Toyota Corolla or Honda Fit. Also, some of the cheapest SUVs to maintain also seem to be Toyota RAV4 and Honda CRV.
YAKOBCHUK VIACHESLAV/Shutterstock.com
After maintenance, repairs are an important issue of luxury cars concerning the price. Since we are stuck with Mercedes and BMW as the example for the most expensive, let’s just put here that a simple oil change for these cars can cost up to $130-140. For German cars, for example, you will have to purchase parts directly from Germany, which takes time and lots of money to repair- for example, $400 and two weeks to get and change the auxiliary water pump for BMW.
Insurance is also among the important issues concerning your annual costs. Some of the most expensive brands concerning annual insurance, as well as the most expensive cars to maintain as we have seen earlier are Mercedes ($3,500 and more) and BMW (around $3,000) again. On the other side of the specter are Chrysler, Toyota, and Honda (with around $1,000 on average).
So, to summarize and add: you might find a fancy luxury vehicle in good condition for a low price no doubt, but be sure you can go on with that. Luxury cars have expensive insurance; repairs cost more, they often require premium type fuels and are usually harder to sell.
Now back on our main subject here, the easiest and cheapest luxury cars to maintain. We have also taken in mind SUVs, of course, to incorporate some of the cheapest luxury SUVs to maintain into our list. First, we have looked at which are those cheapest luxury SUVs under $40,000 for 2017 among which were various Infinity, Audi, BMW and Lincoln models.
To put advertising aside, probably the most reliable measure for really knowing which the easiest and cheapest luxury cars to maintain are, it to hear the opinions of people who actually own them. That is why he have first searched forums like Quora and Reddit where we have found some experiences people had with maintaining luxury cars, so we have taken in mind their recommendations. For other suggestions, we have gone through several other websites specialized in cars such as Autotrader, U.S. News or Your Mechanic where we also got a good insight in luxury car maintenance comparison. We have also taken in mind a similar comparison for 3 and 10 years of ownership of a car from Consumers Reports. In the end, we have made our final ranking on the number of mentions we have found for each car. And not to be too specific, since sometimes there are only minor differences between the models, we have stuck to car brands instead. Also, we did not base rankings on any numbers, first because they differ and vary from model to model, and secondly because individual care and use of a car are also important regarding to repairs and maintenance.
All in all, as we have seen, it seems that among the most expensive car in general are Mercedes and BMW, and the most affordable, yet good vehicles, are Toyota and Honda. Before we go on to our list, you might like to check out the Top 10 Best Selling Luxury Car Brands in the US and compare how many of those are also among the easiest and cheapest luxury cars to maintain.
10. Volvo
Volvo is one of the safest cars out there, but the repair cost can be high. Nevertheless, some models like S60 are actually budget-friendly which is why Volvo takes last place on our list here.
Shevel Artur/Shutterstock.com
