Which Cars Cost Us the Most and the Least to Maintain, and Why?
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Buying a car is an expensive proposition, and that upfront cost is just the start of your spending journey. The car-ownership experience comes with all sorts of additional costs, and there's a wide range of how much money you can expect to pay to maintain your vehicle. When it comes to scheduled maintenance stops at your dealership, there's much to consider as you shop among different brands, such as complimentary maintenance programs and variations in maintenance costs.
Here, we've rounded up data from our extensive 40,000-mile long-term road tests of new vehicles to show our various experiences with different makes and models when it comes to manufacturer-recommended scheduled maintenance. The totals listed below only include regular maintenance stops and don't include wear items such as tires and brakes or unscheduled repairs, which we tally separately. This information is anecdotal based on our experience and doesn't cover every vehicle on the market, but we pulled from the past seven years of our long-term testing of nearly 40 different vehicles. We've highlighted notably expensive and inexpensive vehicles to maintain in different segments, and keep in mind that the costs listed below cover a wide variety of price points, from $30,000 economy cars to near-six-figure sports cars.
Expensive: 2022 Porsche 718 Cayman GTS 4.0 ($3200)
No one expects a Porsche to be inexpensive to own, and our 718 Cayman lived up to this with its sky-high maintenance bills. Of course, we loved the song of its flat-six and the feel of its six-speed manual transmission, but the Cayman rang up a big tally at the dealership—and that's including the fact that the first of the scheduled maintenance stops is complimentary. We spent $3200 on the other three scheduled visits, which happen at 10,000-mile intervals and included new spark plugs at 30,000 miles.
Inexpensive: 2022 BMW M3 ($0)
The M3 isn't an inexpensive car to buy or to own by any stretch of the imagination, but BMW's complimentary scheduled maintenance for the first 3 years or 36,000 miles covered all of our service stops. That meant we didn't pay a cent for scheduled maintenance during our time with the vehicle, and BMW's generous complimentary scheduled maintenance policy continues to this day.
Expensive: 2019 Porsche Cayenne ($2677)
Porsche's SUVs are quite different from its sports cars, but they're similarly expensive to own. Our long-term Cayenne tallied $2677 over its three scheduled maintenance visits (as with the 718 Cayman, the first visit was free). Not only are Porsche's dealership visits expensive on their own, but some of Porsche's competitors such as BMW offer a more generous complimentary scheduled maintenance policy, which also helps keeps initial ownership costs down.
Expensive: 2024 Mazda CX-90 ($1593)
Mazda took a step upscale with its new three-row CX-90 SUV, introducing a new platform and powertrain, and its service receipts looked a bit more like what you'd expect from a luxury SUV than a mainstream one. For reference, other rival three-row SUVs that we've put through our long-term test regimen have racked up lower service totals, such as the 2024 Toyota Grand Highlander ($938), 2020 Kia Telluride ($728), and 2019 Subaru Ascent ($821).
Inexpensive: 2021 Honda CR-V Hybrid ($476)
During our time with Honda's first-generation CR-V Hybrid, we made three scheduled service stops for the usual stuff: oil changes, tire rotations, various filter replacements, and the like. It all came out to a total that was less than we paid for another similarly priced small SUV, the Mazda CX-30 that totaled $781. And that's without any complimentary scheduled maintenance.
Expensive: 2023 Toyota Tundra Hybrid ($1413)
We haven't had too many full-size pickup trucks in our recent long-term arsenal, but Toyota's latest Tundra was far more expensive to maintain than our long-term 2019 Ram 1500 was ($425). A particularly expensive 30,000-mile service was largely to blame for the Toyota's high costs; that visit included air filter replacements, an oil change, a tire rotation, differential fluid changes, and oil replacement for the transfer case.
Inexpensive: 2024 Ford Maverick Hybrid ($593)
The Maverick is a small pickup truck that also proved to have relatively small maintenance costs during our time with this practical machine. Ford doesn't include any complimentary maintenance, but our four scheduled stops were all relatively affordable.
Inexpensive: 2022 Honda Civic Si ($383)
Honda Civics are known for being affordable and economical, and even the fun version—the sporty Si model—proved to be inexpensive to own during our time with an eleventh-gen example. We didn't pay much for any of the Civic's three scheduled stops for oil changes, tire rotations, and filter changes, as even the most expensive bill came in at just over $150. Even our top-dog 2019 Civic Type R cost about the same for service ($369), although it burns through its specialized tires quickly, which will add a lot to the operating costs.
Inexpensive: 2024 Kia EV9 ($355)
Maintaining an electric vehicle is an entirely different proposition than maintaining a gasoline car. For one thing, there's no engine oil to change. So it's no huge surprise that our long-term Kia EV9 ended up being less expensive to maintain than comparable gas-powered three-row SUVs. Other than the BMW i4, which, like the M3, cost nada thanks to the included-maintenance program, the EV9 was our cheapest EV to maintain, followed closely by the Rivian R1T ($405) and Tesla Model 3 ($432).
Inexpensive: 2021 Hyundai Sonata ($96)
Complimentary maintenance came into play with our long-term Sonata N Line, as all but one of its scheduled service stops were covered by Hyundai's plan at the time. Unfortunately, Hyundai ended its coverage starting with the 2026 model year, so those buying new Hyundais now won't benefit from the same free service stops.
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