Why do car servicing costs vary so much?

28 March, 2023  By: Byron Mathioudakis

The costs associated with servicing your vehicle vary wildly, even amongst the affordable, mainstream brands.

This might come as a shock. Most people expect to pay substantially more to service an expensive luxury car or SUV, with all their sophisticated technologies and gadgets, but why is a Hyundai cheaper to maintain than an MG, or a Ford compared to a Toyota pick-up?

The answer, unsurprisingly, is varied and complex – both literally and figuratively. But there is a logic to it, too, as you’ll see.

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Vehicle complexity

Generally speaking, a good rule of thumb is, when it comes to cars with regular internal combustion engines (ICE) like petrols and diesels, the cheaper the vehicle, the less complex it is, to keep costs down. But things are different for electric vehicles (EVs) – we’ll get to that a little later on.

From the price of raw materials and the cost of labour, to the technology fitted, these will all impact on the cost of maintaining an ICE vehicle.

Let’s look at the average servicing cost per week for a Toyota Yaris and VW Polo. According to the RAC’s 2022 Vehicle Operating Costs Survey, this pair represents the cheapest and most expensive to maintain in the Light Cars category:

Lowest: Toyota Yaris Ascent Sport 1.5 CVT Hatch - $20.17 per week.

Highest: Volkswagen Polo Trendline 70TSI 1.0 Turbo 7DSG Hatch - $54.05 per week.

Both cars are the same size and compete in the same class, with advanced engineering, including modern three-cylinder petrol engines and the latest in driver-assist safety systems, to help make these two of the strongest choices in the light-car/supermini segment.

So why is the Polo some 2.5 times more expensive to service? For starters, it costs roughly 10 per cent more than the Yaris to buy and is fitted with more complex mechanical components. From a servicing perspective, these include a turbocharger for the engine and a sophisticated dual-clutch transmission (DCT) that VW brands DSG.

Result? Amongst other things, a turbo engine needs extra cooling and more fluids, while a DCT has twice the number of clutches and more gears to maintain. As your granddad might have said, “there are more things to go wrong!”.

The same reasoning also helps explain why a Toyota Camry costs less than half the amount to service compared to the Hyundai Sonata Turbo DCT amongst medium cars.

Lowest:  Toyota Camry Ascent 2.5 8sp auto Sedan and Hybrid – both $22.50 per week.

Highest: Hyundai Sonata N-line 4dr Coupe - $48.50 per week.

Electric car servicing

Owning an EV is great news as far as curbing servicing costs is concerned, since EVs have far fewer moving parts compared to an ICE vehicle.

This is elegantly illustrated by the Hyundai Kona EV, which averaged barely one-third of the weekly servicing costs compared to the MG HS 1.5 Turbo DCT PHEV – which has the complexity of an ICE turbo and an unusual drive-unit transmission, which together help drive maintenance costs up.

Lowest:  Hyundai Kona Elite EV - $17.67

Highest: MG HS 1.5 Turbo Excite PHEV 2WD - $51.20

Time and distance cost money

Servicing complex mechanical tech adds time – and time is money. Factor in the specialised training required for the mechanics to work on specific complex tech like DSGs, and you can see why prices start adding up. Plus, the costs associated with where parts come from are also passed on to the consumer.

Then there’s the issue of sourcing. It might sound exotic that your car is manufactured in far-flung countries like France or Sweden, but there’s a price to pay for that come service time.

A Toyota Corolla, for instance, is made in Japan and so uses plenty of mechanical components sourced from Asia; the competing VW Golf is built in Germany and so – for the most part – consists of spare parts that must be brought over from Europe. Distance equals money.

These factors, combined with the Golf’s turbo engine and DCT, help push its servicing costs up substantially when assessed against Corolla in the Small Cars category.

Lowest:  Toyota Corolla Ascent Sport Hybrid 1.8 CVT Hatch - $18.92

Highest: Volkswagen Golf 110TSI 1.4 DSG hatch - $57.60

The cost of an all-wheel drive and four-wheel drive

Be it an ICE or an EV, most vehicles have one engine/electric motor to drive either the front or rear wheels.

However, if you want all-wheel drive (AWD), you’ll either need an extra drive shaft and other associated mechanical components, or a second electric motor altogether, situated on the other axle in the case of some hybrids (like in the latest Toyota hybrid all-wheel drive system) and most EV all-wheel drives.

Invariably, these can multiply the costs of servicing and maintenance, in the form of the extra time required as well as components that need attention. It’s a numbers game.

Let’s look at a trio of examples in RAC’s Vehicle Operating Costs Survey that highlight this.

SMALL SUV

Lowest:  Toyota Yaris Cross GX AND Toyota Yaris Cross GX 1.5 Hybrid FWD - $21 per week.

Highest: Subaru XV 2.0i AWD - $60.45 per week.

MEDIUM SUV

Highest: Subaru Forester 2.5iL 2.5 AWD - $60.10 per week.

Lowest:  Toyota RAV4 GXL 2.5 FWD Hybrid - $21.83 per week.

LARGE SUV

Lowest:  Toyota Kluger GX 2.5 AWD Hybrid - $25 per week.

Highest: Kia Sorento 1.6 GT-line AWD hybrid - $87.13 per week.

Like the Toyotas in the RAC survey, the Yaris Cross, RAV4 four-wheel drive hybrid and Kluger all-wheel drive hybrid boast comparatively conventional engine/transmission tech (despite the latter having a second electric motor on the rear axle for all-wheel drive) to help contain servicing costs.

In contrast, Subaru’s XV and Forester feature a complex ICE with a highly unusual configuration and a sophisticated always-on all-wheel drive system that requires extra maintenance compared to the Toyotas, while the Kia Sorento marries a highly-strung turbo, DCT and mechanical all-wheel drive combo to a hybrid system. Subsequently, each cost three times as much to service.

The off-road ‘tax’

In the case of four-wheel drives (4WDs or 4x4s) that are designed to go off-road, the level of tech and complexity varies according to how capable the vehicles must be. For models that need to go anywhere, more-complicated axles, driveshafts, suspension and braking components need to be fitted.

Basically, the bigger the vehicle, the higher the maintenance costs become. Let’s look at three examples below:

ALL TERRAIN

Lowest:  Ford Everest Ambiente 4WD - $36.78 per week.

Highest: Nissan Y62 Patrol Ti 5.6 V8 Petrol - $107.48 per week.

LIGHT COMMERCIAL 4X4

Lowest:  GWM Cannon2.0 T/dsl 4x4 auto dual cab pickup - $29.27 per week.

Highest: Toyota Landcruiser 70 Series Workmate - $94.65 per week.

LIGHT COMMERCIAL 4X2

Lowest:  Ford Ranger XL Hi-Rider 2.0 T/dsl 4X2 6sp auto Dual cab Pickup - $34.80 per week.

Highest: Toyota Hilux SR 2.8 T/dsl 6sp auto 4X2 Dual cab Pickup - $64.45 per week.

The Everest is a tough family wagon with strong four-wheel drive capability, using a 2.0-litre four-cylinder bi-turbo diesel engine, while the Patrol’s petrol engine is over twice as large in capacity, while featuring beefier 4x4 components to offset its greater size, mass, weight and towing capacity. That’s why the Nissan costs so much more to maintain.

The same is true when comparing the cheapest and most expensive Light Commercial 4x4 vehicles – the GWM Cannon and LandCruiser 70 Series.

All that said, the anomaly that exists with the cheapest (Ford Ranger) and most expensive (Toyota HiLux) of the Light Commercial 4x2s (two-wheel drives) is likely down to the diesel particulate filter dramas Toyota has been experiencing with this generation of engine.

In the case of four-wheel drives (4WDs or 4x4s) that are designed to go off-road, the level of tech and complexity varies according to how capable the vehicles must be. For models that need to go anywhere, more-complicated axles, driveshafts, suspension and braking components need to be fitted.

Basically, the bigger the vehicle, the higher the maintenance costs become. Let’s look at three examples below:

ALL TERRAIN

Lowest:  Ford Everest Ambiente 4WD - $36.78 per week.

Highest: Nissan Y62 Patrol Ti 5.6 V8 Petrol - $107.48 per week.

LIGHT COMMERCIAL 4X4

Lowest:  GWM Cannon2.0 T/dsl 4x4 auto dual cab pickup - $29.27 per week.

Highest: Toyota Landcruiser 70 Series Workmate - $94.65 per week.

LIGHT COMMERCIAL 4X2

Lowest:  Ford Ranger XL Hi-Rider 2.0 T/dsl 4X2 6sp auto Dual cab Pickup - $34.80 per week.

Highest: Toyota Hilux SR 2.8 T/dsl 6sp auto 4X2 Dual cab Pickup - $64.45 per week.

The Everest is a tough family wagon with strong four-wheel drive capability, using a 2.0-litre four-cylinder bi-turbo diesel engine, while the Patrol’s petrol engine is over twice as large in capacity, while featuring beefier 4x4 components to offset its greater size, mass, weight and towing capacity. That’s why the Nissan costs so much more to maintain.

The same is true when comparing the cheapest and most expensive Light Commercial 4x4 vehicles – the GWM Cannon and LandCruiser 70 Series.

All that said, the anomaly that exists with the cheapest (Ford Ranger) and most expensive (Toyota HiLux) of the Light Commercial 4x2s (two-wheel drives) is likely down to the diesel particulate filter dramas Toyota has been experiencing with this generation of engine.

Is capped-price servicing worth it?

The advent of capped-price or fixed-price servicing over the past decade or so seems by vehicle manufacturers seems to have made dealer servicing a little more affordable, though it definitely pays to read the fine print.

Most mainstream manufacturers like Toyota, Hyundai and Ford publish the standard price for the first three, four, five or more general services as applicable.

Toyota, for example, will carry out a scheduled logbook servicing, engine oil/filter changes, a tyre rotation, and inspections of the fuel-injection system, and various fluid levels. For a Camry Ascent Hybrid, that comes to $255 every 12 months or 15,000km over the five-year warranty period.

But, quite often, more work may be required due to excessive wear and tear that does not fall within a general service regime. This is where dealer servicing costs can and do escalate.

Other brands, like VW, offer special service bundles, meaning a discount will be applied over the course of several scheduled services. But these must be pre-purchased at the point of new-vehicle sale.

Service intervals

Nowadays, the average visit to a garage is usually every 12 months or at least 10,000km, though some high-performance and specialised models do require shorter intervals while others can exceed 20,000km between visits.

Skipping services to reduce maintenance costs is not recommended and is a false economy. Crucial systems require maintenance. Without it, you risk component failure that could lead to a far-larger problem down the track. And skipped services affect resale values. The risk is not worth taking. Indeed, the more frequent the servicing, the better off your car will be.