Best Family SUV 2021: Ownership costs

Warranty provisions are better than ever in the car industry, and all models lining up for carsales’ Best Family SUV 2021 are covered for at least five years – with unlimited kilometres travelled over that period.

The one exception is the Kia Sorento, which carries an even more attractive seven-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty.

Toyota adds two additional years to its five-year warranty for the Kluger’s hybrid powertrain, provided you’ve had the vehicle maintained as per the Toyota schedule. The Kluger’s hybrid battery also carries a 10-year warranty – if it’s inspected annually.

Most of the family SUVs on test have 12-month/15,000km service intervals, with the exceptions being the Mazda CX-8 and CX-9. The two Mazda SUVs have yearly intervals, but the maximum distance between services is shorter at 10,000km.

Servicing is available via a capped-price scheme for all our contenders, with the Skoda Kodiaq RS and Volkswagen Tiguan Allspace Wolfsburg Edition diesels also available with a pre-paid service option.

We’ve added up five years’ worth of capped-price servicing (as this is the minimum offered by all manufacturers here) and averaged the cost to give an annual sum.

The cheapest servicing cost is for the Toyota Kluger 2.5 Hybrid Grande AWD at $250 per year, while the Volkswagen Tiguan Allspace 2.0T Wolfsburg Edition AWD is most expensive at $742.

However, both Volkswagen and the Skoda offer discounted pre-paid options that significantly reduce service prices compared to paying as you go.

For the Tiguan Allspace, if you elect to pre-pay for the five years’ servicing, it works out at an average of $460 per year, instead of $742. The Skoda’s scheduled service costs also drop, from an average of $528 a year pay-as-you-go to $280 a year if you pay for five years up front.

All have a free roadside assist program for 12 months except the Mazdas and Toyota, which cover you for five years. The rest of the manufacturers top up their roadside assist for another 12 months each time you get a service at a participating authorised dealer.

The biggest cost of a new car is depreciation. Using resale figures obtained from RedBook for 2020 models (except the Volkswagen), the family SUVs on test have a rate of depreciation of around six to 20 per cent after one year.

The CX-8 had the highest rate of depreciation with 21 per cent, while the Tiguan Allspace had the lowest at six per cent.

The only SUV we could not obtain a resale value for was the Toyota Kluger hybrid. This just-launched model is too new to gauge a resale value, and we couldn’t use the superseded Kluger as a reference as it did not have a hybrid model in its range.

Given Toyota resale values have been strong historically, there’s no reason to think that the new Kluger won’t follow suit.

All the SUVs here ride on low-profile 20-inch rubber (except the 19-inch tyres on the Mazda CX-8), and so good quality replacement tyres will not be cheap.

You can’t often buy the exact OEM replacement tyre and there’s a huge variety of tyre brands, quality and prices – not to mention pricing specials going at any given time.

You will need to spend a minimum of $300 per tyre from a reputable brand to replace the rubber on any of these SUVs.

Costing a little more are the Kodiaq and Tiguan Allspace, which will set you back about $350-$400 per corner minimum, and up to about $500 each for a quality brand of tyre.

Hyundai Palisade 2.2D Highlander AWD
Warranty years/km: 5 years/unlimited
Service intervals months/km: 12 months/15,000km
Average annual cost for first 5 services: $469
Dealer service network: 240
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: 1 year free/Yes

Hyundai Santa Fe 2.2D Highlander AWD
Warranty years/km: 5 years/unlimited
Service intervals months/km: 12 months/15,000km
Average annual cost for first 5 services: $459
Dealer service network: 240
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: 1 year free/Yes

Kia Sorento 2.2D GT-Line AWD
Warranty years/km: 7 years/unlimited
Service intervals months/km: 12 months/15,000km
Average annual cost for first 5 services: $479
Dealer service network: 134
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: 1 year free/Yes

Mazda CX-8 2.2D Asaki AWD
Warranty years/km: 5 years/unlimited
Service intervals months/km: 12 months/10,000km
Average annual cost for first 5 services: $348
Dealer service network: 150
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: 5 years free/No

Mazda CX-9 2.5T Azami AWD
Warranty years/km: 5 years/unlimited
Service intervals months/km: 12 months/10,000km
Average annual cost for first 5 services: $382
Dealer service network: 150
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: 5 years free/No

Skoda Kodiaq RS 2.0 TDI AWD
Warranty years/km: 5 years/unlimited
Service intervals months/km: 12 months/15,000km
Average annual cost for first 5 services: $528
Dealer service network: 36
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: 1 year free/Yes

Toyota Kluger 2.5 Hybrid Grande AWD
Warranty years/km: 5 years/unlimited
Service intervals months/km: 12 months/15,000km
Average annual cost for first 5 services: $250
Dealer service network: 200
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: 1 year free/Yes

Volkswagen Tiguan Allspace 2.0T Wolfsburg Edition AWD
Warranty years/km: 5 years/unlimited
Service intervals months/km: 12 months/15,000km
Average annual cost for first 5 services: $742
Dealer service network: 105
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: 1 year free/Yes

Best Family SUV 2021 RedBook resale table: