Top 10 cheapest cars to maintain
U.S. on-demand repair service ranks cars on maintenance costs over a 10-year period
The cost of owning a car is more than just your payment and monthly insurance premium — you have to maintain it, too.
And not all cars cost the same when it comes to maintenance.
Some are significantly cheaper to maintain over a period of 10 years.
The American on-demand car repair service Your- Mechanic has a massive data set of the make and models of the cars it has serviced. It also keeps track of the type of maintenance done.
As a result, the company decided to use its data to understand which cars tend to break down the most and which have the lowest maintenance costs in the United States.
It might not be surprising to some, but the top 10 cheapest cars to maintain over 10 years are all Asian imports.
10. Kia Optima The Kia Optima comes in 10th place with a maintenance cost of $8,197 over10 years. The Korean automaker ranked 14th overall (out of 30) with a cost of $11,271 when YourMechanic grouped all years of all models by brand to compute the average cost. 9. Scion xB Scion no longer exists as a brand, but its cars are still cheap to maintain. The Scion xB costs $8,069 over 10 years. Scion is the second-cheapest brand, coming in 29th place with a cost of $8,197. 8. Toyota Yaris Quite a few Toyota models are on the list, and the Yaris is one of the more expensive Toyota vehicles to maintain. In eighth place, the Yaris has a maintenance cost of $7,813. Toyota as a brand however, is the cheapest overall with a cost of $7,044. 7. Nissan Versa Nissan Versa costs $7,557 in maintenance over a decade. Nissan finished 23rd overall with a cost of $9,734. 6. Toyota Corolla The Toyota Corolla is one of the bestselling cars of all time and it’s easy to see why: It costs $7,429 to maintain over 10 years. 5. Toyota Tacoma Even Toyota pickup trucks are cheap to maintain.
The Tacoma comes in at fifth place with a 10-year maintenance cost of $7,429. 4. Honda Fit Surprisingly, Honda’s other cars don’t make the list, although the Civ- ic is in 14th place and the Accord follows in 15th.
But the Honda Fit is the Japanese automaker’s cheapest car to maintain over 10 years.
Maintenance costs come to $7,044. Honda as a brand came in 27th-place overall with a cost of $9,222. 3. Toyota Camry Toyota continues to perpetuate its reputation of low-cost maintenance with the bestselling Camry model.
Over the course of 10 years, owners can expect to pay $6,660 in maintenance costs. 2. Kia Soul And then there’s the Kia Soul, one of the cheapest cars to maintain over 10 years. According to YourMechanic, the Soul costs $6,020 to keep running over a decade. 1. Toyota Prius And the cheapest car to maintain over 10 years? The Toyota Prius. The company’s wildly popular hybrid is also cheap to own, running just $5,507 to maintain over 10 years. It would be interesting to see if those costs rise once the batteries need replacing.