Best Family SUV 2022: Ownership costs

One of the greatest attractions of buying a new vehicle over second-hand is its new-car warranty.

And here in carsales’ Best Family SUV 2022 mega-test, all eight contenders are offered with at least five years of manufacturer-backed warranty coverage, with unlimited kilometres travelled over that period.

Kia is the only brand here to provide a longer full-cover warranty – that is, seven years/unlimited kilometres for the Kia Sorento HEV.

The hybrid electric vehicle system, which Kia says includes items such as the on-board charger, traction motor, electric power control unit and high-voltage battery system, is also covered for seven years, but with a 150,000km cap.

It’s worth mentioning Toyota’s warranty here too. While the full warranty cover provided for the new Toyota Kluger is five years/unlimited, the Japanese brand provides an additional two years’ powertrain warranty.

The catch is that you must have proof of having 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 Kia Sorento, Mazda CX-8 and Mazda CX-9. These three have 12-monthly service intervals like the rest, but the maximum distance between services is shorter at 10,000km.

Servicing is available via a capped-price scheme for all eight SUVs, with the Skoda Kodiaq RS and Volkswagen Tiguan Allspace also offering pre-paid service options. Skoda’s capped-price servicing (CPS) program is also a bit different to the others, as noted below.

To try to draw a worthwhile comparison of servicing costs, we’ve added five years of capped-price servicing and averaged the cost to provide an annual sum.

The cheapest servicing cost is for the Toyota Kluger Hybrid at $250 per year, while the Volkswagen Tiguan Allspace 162TSI is most expensive at $795.

Skoda doesn’t have a pay-as-you-go capped-price service menu. Instead, the Czech brand offers different levels of servicing (Value, Essential and Complete plans) with a monthly deduction. For example, the Value Plan, which covers basic scheduled servicing (not including brake pads and so on), is $39 a month for the Skoda Kodiaq RS. It was from this price that we calculated the annual average service cost of $468.

Hyundai, Skoda and Volkswagen also offer up-front pre-paid service options. For the Hyundai Palisade and Hyundai Santa Fe you can elect to pre-pay for three, four or five years. There’s currently no discount with these options, although you might save money as the costs are locked in and should not be subject to any price rises.

Meanwhile, you save $68 a year on a five-year pre-paid plan for the Skoda Kodiaq RS, and $205 over five years on a pre-paid deal for the Volkswagen Tiguan Allspace 162TSI. These two Volkswagen Group brands also offer three-year pre-paid deals.

Almost all models on test offer free roadside assistance with the purchase, running for 12 months in most cases; the Mazda CX-8 and CX-9 are covered for five years.

Toyota has a slightly different program in place, offering a free tow to a Toyota dealer if the breakdown was warranty-related. This gives you five years of towing for general warranty problems or seven years for powertrain problems on the Toyota Kluger.

All other car-makers represented here will top up their first-year roadside assist offer for an additional 12 months each time you get a service at a participating authorised dealer.

Traditionally, the biggest cost of owning a new car is depreciation. However, the current market has seen depreciation turned upside down because of rising prices, rampant demand and chronic stock shortages – so much so that some cars are worth more when they’re a year old than when they were new.

Using resale figures obtained from the experts at RedBook for 2021 models, the family SUVs on test have a rate of depreciation of around zero to 14 per cent after one year.

There were three vehicles that could not be exactly represented in the resale table as they are updated models this year, albeit without radical change in specification.

Therefore, the Kia Sorento Highlander HEV AWD is represented in the table by the Sorento Highlander 2.2D AWD. The Skoda Kodiaq RS is represented by last year’s Kodiaq 147TDI. And the Volkswagen Tiguan Allspace 162TSI R-Line has in its place the value for a 2021 Tiguan Allspace 162TSI Wolfsburg Edition.

The Kodiaq had the highest rate of depreciation with 14 per cent, while the Sorento had the lowest, gaining 0.2 per cent in value in a year.

As premium models, the family SUVs on test all ride on low-profile 19-inch or 20-inch tyres, so good quality replacement tyres will not be cheap.

You can’t always find the exact OEM tyre when shopping for replacements and there’s a huge variety of tyre brands, quality and prices – not to mention pricing specials going at any given time.

We chose a price range representing average well-known tyre brands rather than quote on any one particular tyre. There are both cheaper and more expensive tyres available for all; the tyre price is just an estimation for replacements.

The bottom line is that you’ll need to spend a minimum of $250 per tyre from a reputable brand to replace the rubber on any of these SUVs.

The more expensive tyre replacements are with Kodiaq and Tiguan Allspace, which will set you back about $500 per corner.

At the time of writing, tyre choices appeared rather limited for the Kodiaq’s 235/45R20 size compared to the others here.

Hyundai Palisade Highlander 2.2D
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 Highlander 2.2D
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 GT-Line HEV AWD
Warranty years/km: 7 years/unlimited
Service intervals months/km: 12 months/15,000km
Average annual cost for first 5 services: $568
Dealer service network: 134
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: 1 year free/Yes

Mazda CX-8 Asaki 2.2D
Warranty years/km: 5 years/unlimited
Service intervals months/km: 12 months/10,000km
Average annual cost for first 5 services: $378
Dealer service network: 150
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: 5 years free/No

Mazda CX-9 Azami 2.5T AWD
Warranty years/km: 5 years/unlimited
Service intervals months/km: 12 months/10,000km
Average annual cost for first 5 services: $396
Dealer service network: 150
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: 5 years free/No

Skoda Kodiaq RS
Warranty years/km: 5 years/unlimited
Service intervals months/km: 12 months/15,000km
Average annual cost for first 5 services: $468
Dealer service network: 36
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: 1 year free/Yes

Toyota Kluger Grande Hybrid
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 162TSI R-Line
Warranty years/km: 5 years/unlimited
Service intervals months/km: 12 months/15,000km
Average annual cost for first 5 services: $795
Dealer service network: 105
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: 1 year free/Yes

Best Family SUV 2022 RedBook resale table:

*New prices do not include on-road costs.
*Resale value based on: MY21 Kia Sorento GT-Line 2.2D AWD ($64,070 new, $64,100 resale); MY21 Skoda Kodiaq RS 147TDI ($75,990 new, $65,400 resale); MY21 Volkswagen Tiguan Allspace 162TSI Wolfsburg Ed ($59,990 new, $59,390 resale).