The Automobile Association of SA has compiled its Spare Parts Pricing Guide. With comprehensive costings over 11 vehicle categories, this in-depth guide gives you a great idea of the cost of ownership.

The AA has put in some serious yards compiling this guide. It covers parts pricing for service parts, maintenance parts as well as body repair parts. These figures are important as it gives you an idea of the cost of ownership. Many consumers incorrectly assume that the price of the car is all you’ll pay, forgetting the servicing aspect.

Of course, the cost of ownership of an entry-level vehicle will be radically different from that of a high-end luxury SUV, so the AA has broken things down into categories.

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

Entry-Level vehiclesBudget vehiclesCompact Family vehiclesFamily SUVsExecutive SUVsLuxury SUVsAdventure 4×4 vehiclesLCV Single Cab vehiclesLCV Leisure Double Cab vehiclesElectric Cars

Electric cars have been included, but as the tech and SA takeup is still in its infancy, the AA says it’s just added in some parts for reference purposes.

“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 financial 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.

SA’s cheapest cars based on 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. These are SA’s cheapest cars based on the lowest Rand value of total parts basket per category:

The Alfa Romeo Stelvio won the Executive SUV category.Entry-Level vehicles: Datsun Go – R74 024.80Budget vehicles: Ford Figo 1.5 Titanium – R53 254.55Compact Family vehicles: Mazda CX3 – R131 920.18Family SUVs: Honda CR-V – R171 790.57Executive SUVs: Alfa Romeo Stelvio – R179 210.39Luxury SUVs: Range Rover Sport – R367 410.19Adventure 4×4 vehicles: Ford Everest 2.0 BiT XLT – R117 037.19LCV Single Cab vehicles: Isuzu D-MAX – R79 038.56LCV Leisure Double Cab vehicles: Ford Ranger 2.0SiT XLT – R96 083.00

SA’s cheapest cars based on Lowest Rand value of service parts basket per category

The Peugeot 1.2 Active proved that not all French parts pricing is expensive

Based purely on the service parts selected, the following vehicles are SA’s cheapest cars to own:

Entry-Level vehicles: Renault Kwid 1.0 Dynamique – R4085.84Budget vehicles: Ford Figo 1.5 Titanium – R3347.78Compact Family vehicles: Peugeot 1.2 Active – R6011.94Family SUVs: Toyota Rav 4 – R6183.32Executive SUVs: Alfa Romeo Stelvio – R9538.53Luxury SUVs: Lexus RX – R10 504.97Adventure 4×4 vehicles: Isuzu mu-X – R7 444.50LCV Single Cab vehicles: Ford Ranger 2.2TDCi – R5 747.30LCV Leisure Double Cab vehicles: Ford Ranger 2.0SiT XLT – R5 134.09Electric 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.

We’ve attached the category costs as images, so you can compare vehicles in their respective segments. To see the actual costings for service and parts pricing, the report is available for viewing here. Alternatively, we have attached it to this article as a downloadable PDF.

Further Reading

Right to Repair – here’s what you need to know

The ABSA Guide to responsible vehicle ownership