Car ownership costs go far beyond what you pay for a car. A key question is whether you can afford the drip, drip of maintenance and repairs for as long as you own it.

To better understand how costs increase over time and differ by brand, we asked members in our 2023 Annual Auto Surveys to tell us how much they paid out of pocket for their total maintenance (oil changes, tires, etc.) and repairs during the previous 12 months. We did not include costs associated with collision repair...

When comparing cumulative costs by brand for years one through five and six through 10, we found that Tesla had the lowest maintenance costs. At the opposite end of the rankings, several German automakers are clustered as the most expensive brands, namely Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Porsche.