AA Spare Parts Pricing Guide reveals most affordable cars to maintain

The inaugural AA Spare Parts Pricing Guide has arrived and includes parts pricing over 11 categories of vehicles, including electric vehicles.

The guide, wholly researched and published for the first time by the Automobile Association (AA) this year, covers parts pricing for service parts, maintenance parts and body repair parts. 

“After careful consideration of the parts needed across these three subcategories, we identified a number of common parts which consumers may need to consider over the lifetime of their vehicles,” explains the AA.

“Based on this, we collected pricing from dealerships in Gauteng to ensure fairness in the comparisons across each of the different categories of vehicles we selected. In terms of the vehicles themselves, we looked at popular and, where possible, similarly priced models in each category.”

In total, 63 vehicles are included in the guide and cover the following categories:

1. Entry-level vehicles
2. Budget vehicles
3. Compact family vehicles
4. Family SUVs
5. Executive SUVs
6. Luxury SUVs
7. Adventure 4x4 vehicles
8. LCV single cab vehicles
9. LCV leisure double cab vehicles
10. Electric cars

Lowest rand value of total parts basket per category

As a yardstick, the lowest potential cost of ownership of the vehicles surveyed in each category is listed below. This is based on the cumulative rand values of the service parts, the maintenance parts and the body repair parts.

It must be noted that the retail price of some vehicles may already include a limited number of services and a selection of service and/or maintenance parts.

• Entry-level vehicles: Datsun Go — R74,024.80
• Budget vehicles: Ford Figo 1.5 Titanium — R53,254.55
• Compact family vehicles:  Mazda CX3 — R131,920.18
• Family SUVs: Honda CR-V — R171,790.57
• Executive SUVs: Alfa Romeo Stelvio — R179,210.39
• Luxury SUVs: Range Rover Sport — R367,410.19
• Adventure 4x4 vehicles: Ford Everest 2.0 BiT XLT — R117,037.19
• LCV single cab vehicles: Isuzu D-MAX — R79,038.56
• LCV leisure double cab vehicles: Ford Ranger 2.0SiT XLT — R96,083.00

Electric cars have been assessed as they are critical for the future of mobility. As it is still too early to determine exactly what parts will be needed over the lifetime of the vehicles, a selection of parts is listed for reference purposes.

Lowest rand value of service parts basket per category

Based purely on the service parts selected, the following vehicles provide the lowest parts basket cost:

• Entry-level vehicles: Renault Kwid 1.0 Dynamique — R4,085.84
• Budget vehicles: Ford Figo 1.5 Titanium — R3,347.78
• Compact family vehicles: Peugeot 1.2 Active — R6,011.94
• Family SUVs: Toyota Rav 4 — R6,183.32
• Executive SUVs: Alfa Romeo Stelvio — R9,538.53
• Luxury SUVs: Lexus RX — R10,504.97
• Adventure 4x4 vehicles: Isuzu mu-X — R7,444.50
• LCV single cab vehicles: Ford Ranger 2.2TDCi — R5,747.30
• LCV leisure double cab vehicles: Ford Ranger 2.0SiT XLT — R5,134.09
• Electric Cars: BMW i3 — R11,806.33

Overall service parts costs are, predictably, the lowest costs for all vehicles with vehicle body parts the most expensive. 

“The AA Spare Parts Pricing Guide is important research consumers must be made aware of. Buyers often don’t consider the potential lifetime costs of vehicles at the time of purchase, and budgeting for these expenses is critical. Our research shows that more and more people are keeping their vehicles for longer due to prevailing economic conditions and personal finance circumstances; the information in our Guide is a critical component of proper research as part of buying a new or second-hand vehicle,” concludes the AA.

The complete AA Spare Parts Pricing Guide is available here.