Car servicing and repair costs

Car maintenance costs can run into hundreds of pounds each year, so it’s worth doing a bit of research on how much you can expect to pay – before you take your current car in for a service, and when choosing a new car. 

The Which? member-exclusive tool below lets you find out what you can expect to pay for servicing on over 330 cars, based on responses to the annual Which? car survey.

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The cheapest and most expensive cars to service

The tool below lets you search for the results of any car in our survey.

If you can’t find the car you’re looking for, use the 'Brand service and repair costs' tab to find out how much specific types of cars from each manufacturer cost to service in three age groups (0-4, 5-9 and 10-15 years). 

For individual cars, we also provide a figure of how many people said they took their car in for a service. This gives an indication – albeit not an exact answer – as to how often people tend to take their car in.

Low service rates could be because the car is too new to have had a full service, but it could also be due to the fact that the car doesn’t require frequent full services.

Further down, we explain how we calculate these costs.

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Car servicing by fuel type

The table below shows different engine types and how much they cost to service on average.

While every model varies, there are some clear trends in our data that reflect the hidden costs of choosing one type of car over another.

*Figure in brackets shows the percentage of owners who reported any servicing costs in the 12-month period covered by our survey

For example, plug-in hybrids have the most expensive servicing costs of any car type in both the 0-4 and 5-9 year age groups.

Electric cars (EVs), meanwhile, have servicing costs akin to petrol cars but a lower proportion of people having them serviced in the 12 months covered by our survey. 

It’s also worth noting that many EVs don’t require annual servicing and instead adopt a ‘condition-based’ approach (where the car tells you what needs replacing and when), and usually this relates only to items such as air filters. 

Where costs do go up is when tyres are involved because, currently, tyres on EVs cost more on average than other types of cars. This is partly due to the rigours of being a tyre for an EV that produces a lot of torque (pulling power), but also because currently, EVs trend towards more premium brands that use larger wheels, for which tyres cost considerably more, on average. 

How we calculate costs

Between April and June 2025, we surveyed 63,334 car owners about their car ownership in the past 12 months, including how much they spent on servicing and repairs. In total, we gathered data on 72,470 cars.

For servicing, we asked respondents whether they had taken their car to a professional mechanic in the past 12 months. For those who said they did, we asked them how much in total they’d spent on servicing, including replacement parts (such as fluids, filters, tyres and any other consumable or wear-and-tear part). 

On repairs, we asked owners how much they had spent on repairing faults in the past 12 months. 

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Are independent garages cheaper for servicing?

Independent garages are cheaper on average, according to our survey.

Across all cars in our survey, a service from a franchised dealer costs £361, while a local independent costs just £260 on average. Looking at the average across cars available to buy new, franchised dealer services cost £331, compared with local garages at £262. 

Even if your car is still under its original warranty, consumer law dictates that you’re allowed to take it to any garage as long as they use genuine parts and oils and fluids recommended by the manufacturer. As such, a trustworthy, independent mechanic can be a great way to save money, provided they accurately document their work in the car’s service history. 

 Expert opinion: a hidden perk of EVs?

Michael Passingham, Which? Senior researcher

It may be mandatory for car brands to publish a car’s miles per gallon, but you’ll seldom find servicing costs anywhere obvious, aside from when you’re negotiating extras with your dealer. 

It’s a pity, because in reality there are some brands that could really be shouting about how affordable it can be to run one of their cars.

Electric Peugeots are by far the cheapest to service on average, according to our survey, closely followed by MG EVs and Vauxhall EVs. Dacia's petrol cars are also very cheap to service. This is great to know, and not necessarily obvious from the sales brochures. 

Tesla does rather shout about it and makes its app-based service model a big part of the ownership experience. In fact, there isn’t really such a thing as a Tesla service per se; when a consumable part needs replacing, the car will tell you and you can book yourself in on the Tesla app.

This is also shown in our data; the Tesla Model 3 and Tesla Model Y are the least-serviced cars we have data on in any age group by some distance (42% and 38% of owners, respectively, described their visit to Tesla as a service during the 12 months covered by our survey).

While the average service cost of these Tesla cars is relatively high, their infrequency indicates replacement tyres are likely the cause (EV tyres tend to cost more than those for other fuel types). And if all you have to do is replace the occasional filter or tyre, you can fairly easily predict what each appointment is going to cost you.

Of course, it’s still early days for mass-market EVs and it could be that issues with batteries or motors could come up in a service further down the line. But, so far, this hasn’t been borne out in our data. 

Should I buy an electric car? Find out the questions you need to ask yourself before making the switch