9:23 am, November 24, 2022
BMWs are the most expensive cars to repair when it comes to the best selling manufacturers in the UK.
That’s according to research by a warranty company that has worked out the average cost of repairs for the top 10 best selling car brands.
Warrantywise’s exclusive research for Car Dealer revealed that the average cost of repair for a BMW in the last two years was £1,282.
BMW is currently the fifth best selling car brand in the UK with 88,844 registrations to the end of October.
The warranty firm looked at data from the last two years of the hundreds of thousands of cars it provides cover for. Warrantywise could not supply the exact number of cars it covered for each brand, but for data to be shared with Car Dealer ‘more than 500’ models had to be covered by the firm.
The average repair cost takes into account all claims received for models made from each manufacturer in 2021 and 2022.
Warrantywise created the list of the best selling car brands to date in the UK using new car registration data from the SMMT. It then cross referenced this with the average repair costs for each of those brands from the claims it had paid out on.
It found that second in the most expensive to repair list was Audi – with average repairs costing £1,164. Audi is the third best selling manufacturer so far this year.
And in third place was Mercedes at £992. The German firm is the eighth best selling car manufacturer so far this year.
Top 10 repair costs for UK’s biggest selling car brands
Average price taken from across repairs approved by WarrantyWise. Top 10 car brands from SMMT data to date (ranking in brackets)
- BMW – £1,282 (5th)
- Audi – £1,164 (3rd)
- Mercedes – £992 (8th)
- Nissan – £991 (10th)
- Ford – £960 (1st)
- Volkswagen – £892 (2nd)
- Toyota – £828 (6th)
- Hyundai – £806 (9th)
- Vauxhall – £706 (7th)
- Kia – £646 (4th)
Warrantywise did lay out the most expensive repairs it has paid out on in the last two years for each of the brands listed.
Mercedes tops that list with one car costing a staggering £23,302 to fix. BMW was in second place with one single repair costing just shy of £20k.
The highest repair costs for each of the top 10 best selling car manufacturers is listed below.
Highest repair costs for top 10 brands
Highest repair costs paid out by Warrantywise on the cars it covers during 2021 and 2022
- Mercedes – £23,302
- BMW – £19,678
- Audi – £17,212
- Ford – £13,993
- Volkswagen – £12,045
- Nissan – £9,600
- Vauxhall – £8,368
- Hyundai – £5,540
- Toyota – £5,146
- Kia – £3,774
Lawrence Whittaker, CEO of Warrantywise, said: ‘Data like this helps motorists on the hunt for a new used vehicle think ahead about which brand fits best into their budget, long-term.
‘Although these costs will inevitably go up as the cost of living keeps increasing into next year, hopefully, this information will help dealers understand what cars consumers will be looking to buy as the effects of rising prices keep developing.’
Will Beaumont, editor of recently launched BMW specialist magazine Werke, said these figures could simply be a result of people wanting to look after their cars.
He said: ‘Do these figures say BMWs are unreliable and expensive, or does it say that people want to keep their BMWs even as the cars get older? Perhaps we’re seeing passion over pragmatism.
‘If you use a car and put miles on it, parts start to wear out and they need replacing. If you want to keep a car that you love on the road – and make sure it’s usable, safe and reliable – it’ll cost.
‘I’ll admit, it doesn’t reflect brilliantly on BMW’s engineering and build quality, but maybe this data shows that many people want take out extended warranties on BMWs, and lots of people pay to fix them out of their own pockets, because it’s worth it to them to keep these cars in their lives.’
2022 registrations to end of October
Source: SMMT
- Ford – 108,072
- Volkswagen – 104,975
- Audi – 90,238
- Kia – 89,146
- BMW – 88,844
- Toyota – 87,279
- Vauxhall – 73,758
- Mercedes – 71,371
- Hyundai – 69,757
- Nissan – 59,625
WarrantyWise warned that it is already seeing a rise in the cost of repairs.
The firm added: ‘Since the data was selected, WarrantyWise has seen a significant rise in the price of labour and parts, which will impact future repair costs.’
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