Is your car bleeding you dry on maintenance?
Nobody tells you what a normal year at the garage looks like for the car you happen to own. The figure that feels steep for one badge is a quiet year for another, and the all-makes average that gets quoted is close to useless once you know how far apart the cheapest brand and the dearest sit. Put in your make, year, mileage and this year's bills and see where your spend actually lands among owners of the same badge. This calculator on Find The Norm uses RepairPal, AAA Driving Costs, RAC, and NRMA/RACQ data to compare your annual car maintenance spend against averages for your make and model.
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Average annual maintenance cost by make, from RepairPal
RepairPal pulls its figures from millions of verified repair orders across the United States, and across every make the average annual repair and maintenance bill comes to $652. That number bundles scheduled servicing with unscheduled repairs, covers 2010 to 2019 model-year vehicles, and leaves out fuel, insurance and finance. Read it as a midpoint between brands rather than a target for yours, because the table below runs from well under $500 a year to well over $1,000, and your badge decides which end you're at before you've driven a mile. The UK and Australian benchmarks in the calculator come from the RAC and NRMA/RACQ rather than RepairPal, so the result is a comparison within your own country rather than across borders.
| Make | Avg annual cost | vs all-brand avg |
|---|---|---|
| Toyota | $441 | 32% below avg |
| Honda | $428 | 34% below avg |
| Mazda | $462 | 29% below avg |
| Hyundai | $468 | 28% below avg |
| Kia | $474 | 27% below avg |
| Nissan | $500 | 23% below avg |
| Lexus | $551 | 16% below avg |
| Subaru | $617 | 5% below avg |
| Jeep | $634 | 3% below avg |
| Chevrolet | $649 | At average |
| Volkswagen | $676 | 4% above avg |
| Ford | $775 | 19% above avg |
| Volvo | $769 | 18% above avg |
| Mercedes-Benz | $908 | 39% above avg |
| BMW | $968 | 48% above avg |
| Audi | $987 | 51% above avg |
| Land Rover | $1,174 | 80% above avg |
| Porsche | $1,192 | 83% above avg |
Are Volvos expensive to maintain?
Volvo sits at the cheap end of the premium bracket, with RepairPal putting its average annual repair cost at $769, which is 18% above the all-brand figure of $652 but a long way under BMW at $968 and Audi at $987, so a Volvo owner is paying luxury money without the full German premium. Mercedes-Benz at $908 is dearer too. Against Toyota at $441 and Lexus at $551 the Volvo premium is real, and if you've moved across from one of those the jump will be noticeable, but among cars sold as luxury it remains one of the more affordable to keep on the road.
Are BMWs expensive to maintain?
Yes, by most measures, since RepairPal puts the average BMW annual repair and maintenance bill at $968, 48% above the all-brand average of $652, and BMWs also come back to the workshop for unscheduled repairs more often than most brands in the dataset, which the per-year average doesn't fully capture. Premium parts pricing and specialist labour do most of the damage, and the repair frequency stacks on top. Set a Toyota at $441 a year beside a BMW at $968 and the gap is $527 annually, which is over $5,000 across a decade of ownership before you count the extra visits. If your BMW is costing you $800 a year, you're doing better than the average owner, which is the sort of thing this calculator exists to tell you.
Are Mercedes expensive to maintain?
Mercedes-Benz owners spend an average of $908 a year on maintenance and repairs according to RepairPal, 39% above the all-brand average, which lands the brand in the expensive tier but below BMW and Audi among the German premium makes, and Mercedes has a lower chance of a severe repair than BMW or Land Rover. That lower severity takes some of the sting out of the higher price per visit. Age is the thing to watch. Once a Mercedes passes about eight years, out-of-warranty parts and specialist labour take over as the main costs and the annual bill climbs sharply, so the $908 leans towards the younger end of the fleet and an older car will usually run above it.
Are Lexus expensive to maintain?
No, Lexus is the cheapest luxury brand in this table to keep by a wide margin, with RepairPal putting the average annual cost at $551, 16% below the all-brand average and well below every European luxury rival, because Lexus shares so much engineering and so many parts with Toyota that many non-specialist mechanics can work on one. Consumer Reports and JD Power put Lexus at or near the top of their reliability rankings year after year, and the RepairPal figure is what that reliability looks like in money. Lexus owners get the badge without the German-brand maintenance bill, and a Lexus owner spending BMW money should ask the garage some questions.
Frequently asked questions
Everything you paid to keep the car running, so scheduled servicing such as oil changes, brake pads, tyres and filters, unscheduled repairs when something failed, and the labour on all of it. Leave out fuel, insurance, registration and finance payments. The RepairPal benchmarks exclude those same items and come from verified US repair orders, so you're comparing like with like as long as you count the same things they did.
Because parts prices, repair complexity and how often things break all move with the badge. A Toyota oil change uses parts that dozens of suppliers make, so the price stays keen. The same job on a Land Rover may need proprietary fluids and specialist knowledge, and costs far more. Independent mechanics usually charge less than main dealers, though some brands need software that narrows your choice. The badge sets your floor and ceiling.
For routine work, yes. An EV needs no oil changes and has no spark plugs or timing belt, and regenerative braking makes the pads last far longer. Argonne National Laboratory's 2021 cost study for the US Department of Energy put battery-electric maintenance at 6.1 cents a mile against 10.1 cents for a petrol car, about 40% lower. The unknown is the battery, since an out-of-warranty pack can cost $10,000 to $20,000, though most makers give 8-year, 100,000-mile warranties.
A great deal. RepairPal's averages describe 2010 to 2019 model-year cars, and past 10 years unscheduled repairs get more frequent and dearer as the parts that lasted a decade start to go: timing chains, suspension bushings, water pumps, electronic modules. AAA's Your Driving Costs study only covers new cars over their first five years, so it can't tell you what an old car costs. On an old BMW or Land Rover, one repair can exceed the car's value.
Honda and Toyota, on RepairPal's figures, at $428 and $441 a year, and both get top marks for reliability from Consumer Reports and JD Power. Mazda and Hyundai follow at $462 and $468. Among luxury brands Lexus leads clearly at $551, built on Toyota's engineering with a premium finish. The reliability pays twice, through cheaper visits and fewer of them, and RepairPal's annual figure already counts both.
$652 a year across all brands in the US, according to RepairPal. Toyota owners average $441 and BMW owners $968, while a Land Rover owner faces $1,174. AAA's Your Driving Costs 2025 puts maintenance, repair and tyres for a new car higher, at 11.04 cents a mile or about $1,656 over 15,000 miles, because it counts tyres and an extended warranty, which is why the form asks whether you bought a set. (Sources: RepairPal; AAA Your Driving Costs 2025)
Oil leaks and cooling system failures are the recurring expensive items. BMW owners make about 0.9 unscheduled repair visits a year, more than twice the 0.4 average in RepairPal's data, and 15% of those repairs are classed as severe against 12% across all brands, which is how the brand reaches $968 a year, 48% above the $652 all-brand average. The free maintenance programme on new cars, 3 years or 36,000 miles, hides this until it expires. (Source: RepairPal)
Honda ($428), Toyota ($441), Mazda ($462), Hyundai ($468) and Kia ($474), on RepairPal's data, and what they share is easy parts supply and simple mechanical design, which is where the reliability ratings come from. The cheapest individual models are the Toyota Corolla at $362 a year, the Honda Fit at $390 and the Mazda3 at $433. (Source: RepairPal)
Use a good independent garage instead of the dealership for out-of-warranty work, since labour usually costs less on the same parts. Keep to the manufacturer's schedule, because a skipped service tends to turn into a bigger repair. Do the simple jobs yourself if you're able. And fix small faults quickly, because brake pads left too long can take the rotors with them and double the bill.
About $54 a month for the average American, which is the $652 all-brand figure divided by twelve. Monthly averages mislead, though, because maintenance is lumpy, three months of nothing and then a big brake job. Set aside a reserve sized to your brand instead. On RepairPal's averages, Toyota and Honda owners need about $36 to $37 a month, Ford and Chevrolet owners $54 to $65, and BMW, Mercedes and Audi owners $76 to $82. (Source: RepairPal)
- RepairPal Average Annual Repair Cost Database. repairpal.com/reliability.
- AAA Your Driving Costs 2025. American Automobile Association.
- US Department of Energy, Vehicle Technologies Office, Fact of the Week 1190, June 2021, citing Argonne National Laboratory's 2021 total cost of ownership study by Burnham and colleagues (report ANL/ESD-21/4).