Driving a car is not all there is to owning a car. You have to maintain the car for it to serve you well. This maintenance also goes a long way to determine how long the car will serve you. One question arises though: how much are you willing to spend for your car's maintenance?

All cars do not cost the same when it comes to maintenance, some cars are pretty expensive to maintain compared to some others that are cheap to keep on the road.

Online automobile site YourMechanic.com from data that spans 10 years, has come out with an index of cheapest cars to maintain as well as the most expensive cars to maintain, brought to you by Naijacarnews.com.

The statistics use the amount it costs to change oil twice in a year for the 10 years to come up with this maintenance comparism, as it is generally recommended that oil be changed every six months, or there can be consequences.

Everybody wants a car, but maintenance can be quite pocket draining

1. Car brands & estimated maintenance cost over 10 years

Below are the data gathered by reliable car mechanic sites in the world, indicating an average maintenance cost for each car brand over a decade, converted to Nigerian naira for your reference.

While you may not be familiar with some car brands as they are not well known in here in Nigeria, you can see from the information that luxury cars from Germany and America such as the BMW, Mercedes-Benz and the Cadillac are the most expensive to maintain while the Asian Auto giant Toyota ranks least on the table along with its subsidiaries, the Scion and the Lexus.

It is also worthy to note that the maintenance costs of cars changes as the car ages i.e. the cost increases as the car grows older. This is probably because one may not like to spend much on cars when the cost of maintenance is becoming higher than the car's worth.

However, having compared the cost maintenance of different brands of cars, we cannot conclude that all models of a particular car brand follow the pattern of either being expensive to maintain or least expensive to maintain. Individual models of different car brands also have different cost of maintenance. Here we look at them from the least to the most expensive.

>>> For your reference: Oando engine oil in Nigeria - Available products, Prices and Reviews

2. Cheapest & Most expensive cars to maintain

Here are the car models that cost least to maintain worldwide. You may consider buying one of these to save car repair budget.

If awards are to be given, the Asian Auto manufacturers will come out tops; especially the Toyota brands that have totally proven to be economical in terms of maintenance, followed by the Honda and the Kia car manufacturers.

Toyota Prius is the cheapest car to maintain, however it does cost a bit more to start with

>>> Talking about car prices, let's see Who own the most expensive car collections in the world

3. Common issues that require car maintenance/ repair

But what causes this disparity in the cost of maintenance? Well, some cars tend to have high frequency of reoccurrence of a fault. You find that you often visit your mechanic to work on a particular fault time and again. This contributes to the cost of maintenance of a car.

Let us now look at car brands, their issues and their frequency of occurrence.

Cars like Kim Kardasian's Mercedes Benz G63 are not prone to frequent breakdown, but they cost a bomb to start with

The Ford Mercury had the most issue as it suffers most from fuel pump related issues. I guess this was the reason its production was discontinued in 2011.  The Fiat Chrysler Automobiles FCA has the highest frequency of faults, with the Chrysler appearing four times with different faults and the Dodge, which is a part of the FCA conglomerate having exhaust gas recirculation issues.  

As Naijacarnews brings you this resource about the cost of car maintenance of different car brands and models, this is not to say that the information is peculiar to these cars irrespective of the manner of handling. Some cars will do well if and only if they are handled properly.

Generally, proper handling of your car could effectively limit the cost of maintenance.

>>> Informative maintenance tips always available on Car Care at Naijacarnews.com