Audis are more expensive than BMW and Mercedes cars to service.
For the third year running online car garage and repair marketplace Whocanfixmycar.com analysed more than 180,000 pieces of data on the brands, and has found that Audi is up to 24% more expensive to repair than Mercedes models and 10% more expensive than BMW.
Alistair Preston (pictured), co-founder of WhoCanFixMyCar.com, said: “The argument between Audi, BMW and Mercedes drivers about which brand is better has been going on for years – and hopefully our research can shed some light on which is actually and verifiably the best in terms of costings.
“It’s unsurprising that within the first five years there are fewer quotes – as the cars are fairly new and maintenance isn’t needed.
“However, it is interesting to see just how much more expensive Audi is than the other two brands – especially between the five to eight-year mark.
Maybe now people walking into dealerships around the UK will think twice before they decide which brand they want to invest in.”
Audi repairs in 2017 cost drivers £182.94 on average - 11% lower than 2016 where quotes for Audi repairs were £207.11.
The largest gap between repair costs for the brands’ equivalent models is the C-Class and A4.
The A4 is 39% more expensive than the C-Class to repair, and sits 28% higher than the BMW 3-Series.
However, Audi is the cheapest for steering and suspension and electrical and battery work, compared to Mercedes which is the most expensive of the three brands for this type of repair.
Audi is also the cheapest for a cambelt change with an average cost of £369.92, compared to Mercedes which costs £475.54 and BMW which costs £826.22.
“This cost difference is because BMW and Mercedes tend to use a timing chain instead of a cambelt, which are more expensive to repair.
“However, requests for BMW and Mercedes timing chain repairs sit 20 times and 100 times lower, respectively, than Audi cambelt repairs,” said Preston.
Mercedes clutch replacements were quoted at £670.58 on average compared to BMW at £544.85 and Audi at £578.39.
Audi is the most expensive for gearbox repairs on average across the three brands - for a manual gearbox repair it costs £567.73, for an auto gearbox it’s £428.68 and a reconditioned gearbox will set a driver back £744.60.
The rise in repair costs for Audi tends to appear around the five-year-old mark – at this point Audi is around £75 more expensive than Mercedes, and £25 more expensive than BMW.
Jeremy has been a journalist for 30 years, 20 of which have been in business-to-business automotive. He was a writer and news editor on AM-sister brand Fleet News for three years before setting up the AM website. For the last five years he has been Bauer B2B’s head of digital helping to manage the digital assets of AM, together with Fleet News, Commercial Fleet, Rail and Smart Transport.
Hugo - 17/09/2018 17:29
I stopped reading after this... "Audi is also the cheapest for a cambelt change with an average cost of £369.92, compared to Mercedes which costs £475.54 and BMW which costs £826.22". BMW and Mercedes, cambelt???