The Most and Least Expensive Cars to Maintain
I found it interesting that the Chrysler Sebring was listed as the most expensive car to maintain.  The first car I purchased for myself was a 1995 Chrysler LeBaron Convertible.  I was 17 years old and had saved up money from a business my father had started for me when I was 13 years old and due to my dear Dad working in the industry, I was able to buy it on the &quot;C-Lot&quot;[0] for $12,000 (not bad with an all leather interior and 8,000 miles ... or so I thought).  During the 5 long years I owned it, I went through not one, but <i>three</i> $2,400 transmission rebuilds.  I was young and wasn&#x27;t smart enough to know to ditch the car after the first.  Nor did I know there was an 800 number I could have called that would almost certainly have resulted in a discounted&#x2F;free repair for the first (which happened about 2,000 miles outside of the warranty period) or the two others (which happened within 1.5 years of each other).<p>This car soured Chrysler&#x2F;Dodge&#x2F;Plymouth vehicles for me for life.  I have <i>never</i> considered another car from that brand and I wasn&#x27;t at all surprised to see many Chrysler vehicles on the high-cost list.<p>It was also nice to see several American made cars on that list[1], including my Ford Fusion.  I own a 2012 model (last year before a substantial redesign[also 1]) with 100,000 miles on it and it has <i>never</i> required service other than routine maintenance (and a few more alignments than I&#x27;m used to, but I almost <i>never</i> drive being a work-at-home guy so I&#x27;m not sure what might be happening while all of those miles are put on[2]).<p>I would have loved to see the raw data behind the article for a few reasons.<p>1. Model years are missing and more details about how many kinds of failures would have been nice.  Highlighting the most expensive is nice, but if several less expensive parts are failing, that&#x27;s also very important.<p>2. The cost of routine maintenance for parts that are guaranteed to wear can vary <i>dramatically</i> depending on where the service is done.  The dealer is the most expensive, almost every time, but things like brakes come to mind.  Where I live, taking a car for a brake job at a brake place is highway robbery.  A friend showed me how easy it is to do brakes and I discovered I could do all 4 for the cost of one at the shop (or just replace the brakes&#x2F;rotors for the price of a pad job).  I later learned that a good shop will do them for about $40 in labor over the cost of parts at a retail auto-parts store (and I thank God that I now have a family friend who owns said shop).<p>3. It has a bad smell to it and I&#x27;d like to understand how they interpreted the data or whether or not the data set is complete.  For the American brands, some of those cars have corresponding models from their other affiliated brands (A Chevy X is a Oldsmobile Y or even extreme cases where Eagle [dead now] branded vehicles used to be Mitsubishi products) with very little differences in the vehicles.  This makes sense in the case of non-luxury brand&#x2F;luxury brand because there are more expensive parts and usually major underlying improvements in the luxury brands that affect repair frequency&#x2F;cost.  But in the case of that Sebring, at one point that was pretty much the <i>same car</i> as a Dodge model except for the exterior and I thought I spotted others on that list that had the same situation but with the equivalent vehicle nowhere to be found.<p>If anyone has that data set and can link to it, I&#x27;d be curious.<p>[0] I may not have this exactly right, including the name, but my understanding is that these cars were driven by higher level employees &quot;lease-style&quot; for a year at a discount (or as a perk).  Suppliers and employees can show up on a designated day and commit to purchase the vehicle at a solid discount - mine was $12,000 for an all leather model with about 8,000 miles on it (that would be repaired at the dealership under warranty).  The &quot;catch&quot;, I learned years later, is that some&#x2F;many of the employees exercising this perk don&#x27;t bother doing routine maintenance on the car and generally treat it very harshly.<p>[1] I live in Michigan, my dad&#x27;s business is a supplier to the local autos, and there&#x27;s still a lot of us who remember the days of evil bastards keying non UAW-made vehicles so I&#x27;m stuck with the Big Three (making that Two in my case).  The general rule has been <i>never buy a car the first year after a substantial redesign</i> and vehicles on the last year prior to redesign are usually the most reliable (kinks worked out).  I don&#x27;t know if that&#x27;s based on real data or if that&#x27;s just been good luck (and common sense), but it&#x27;s been a reliable rule for my family in all but the LeBaron case (I think 96 was the last year).  That rule, along with and &quot;if you&#x27;re buying new, do so when the dealers are trying to get the next model year on the lot&quot; (it was a $7,000 difference with my Fusion) are the only two I know.<p>[2] I suspect a defect in this case or even more likely -- road conditions.  My wife is a great driver, the car has original brakes at 100,000 miles (a feat the mechanic who inspected them last month was impressed with) and everything but the suspension is in amazing condition.  The suspension problems and realignment frequency have me thinking her lack of gaming skills is at fault.  In this part of Michigan, driving any freeway&#x2F;major road is like playing a game of &quot;Dodge the Potholes&quot; where failure to win results in blown out tires (we&#x27;ve had two incidents), unusual suspension wear&#x2F;problems and alignment issues depending on the angle of impact and depth.