Should You Buy A New Subaru? What It Costs To Keep A 5 And 10-Year-Old Model
Is it time to trade in your older Subaru and buy a 2021 Subaru Forester, Outback, or another model? Is a Subaru expensive to maintain? Here are the maintenance costs on a five or ten-year-old Subaru. A new study from Consumer Reports (by subscription) gives the cost of car ownership over time.
In their annual auto surveys, owners reveal how much they paid out of pocket for total maintenance (oil changes, etc.) and repairs during the previous 12 months. Check out the average mainstream automaker's maintenance costs below.
photo credit: Timmons Subaru
The average of all automaker's five-year-old vehicles costs $205 per year in maintenance. The average ten-year-old car costs $430 in maintenance. The report says Subaru’s average cost for a five-year-old vehicle is $290. Subaru’s average cost for a ten-year-old car is $480. Both are slightly more than the average of all twenty-seven car brands.
What the maintenance study from Consumer Reports does not take into consideration is a car's depreciation and resale value. Check out the Torque News report here.
photo credit: Timmons Subaru
How does Subaru compare with the other mainstream brands?
In order of highest to lowest, here are the five and ten-year average maintenance costs. Jeep has $236 cost per year at five years and $600 at ten years. Subaru $290/$480 5/10, Mazda $188/$406, Kia $177/$392, Honda $219/$337, Nissan $183/$376, Hyundai $170/$376, Buick $122/$358, GMC $222/$344, Chevrolet $164/$342, Toyota $207/$338, Ford $175/$321, and Chrysler $183/$317.
Maintenance costs go up when the warranty and free maintenance periods are over. Subaru’s warranty on new vehicles is 3-year/36,000-miles and powertrain limited warranty of 5 years/60,000 miles.
Subaru now offers owners two years of free maintenance on 2021 Subaru Forester, Outback, Crosstrek, or other all-wheel-drive vehicles. It’s only offered in states like Florida, Arizona, Tennessee, Texas, and California, where Subaru wants to grow its market share and competitive presence. You can read the Torque News report here.
By the time a vehicle is five years old, the free perks have phased out, and maintenance costs rise. But when a car is ten years old, it’s when the costs go up. It’s also a time when other costs go down, like license plates and insurance. If you own your Subaru Forester or Outback, you also don’t have a car payment and may want to keep your all-wheel-drive vehicle.
A new study by iSeeCars reveals many Subaru owners do keep their older models longer than 10 years. The Subaru Forester makes the top-10 cars and SUVs lists, and the Subaru Outback is one of the top ten SUVs owners keep longer than 15 years.
If you are ready to trade in an older model, Subaru offers special no-interest financing on the 2021 Subaru Forester and 2021 Outback models. You can check out the lease deals on all Subaru vehicles for your area here.
You Might Also Like: New Vincentric Study Says 2021 Subaru Outback, Crosstrek, and Legacy Are The Lowest Cost To Own
Denis Flierl has invested over 30 years in the automotive industry in a consulting role working with every major car brand. He is an accredited member of the Rocky Mountain Automotive Press. Check out Subaru Report where he covers all of the Japanese automaker's models. More stories can be found on the Torque News Subaru page. Follow Denis on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Subaru Report - We’ve got you covered! Check back tomorrow for more unique, informative SUBARU news, reviews, and previews you can trust.
Leave your comments below, share the article with friends and tweet it out to your followers!
Photo credit: Timmons Subaru
Comments