Best Hot Hatch 2022: Ownership costs

There’s a refreshing commonality across the field vying for carsales’ Best Hot Hatch 2022 when it comes to the basic factory warranty coverage, which for each of our six contenders is five years with unlimited kilometres travelled over that period.

But with racetrack driving an increasingly common element in the hot hatch ownership experience, there’s only one brand that extends its warranty to the track – Hyundai.

Like the Ford Focus ST and Fiesta ST, and the Volkswagen Golf GTI and Polo GTI, the Hyundai i30 and i20 N are not covered for any defects arising where the vehicle has been used for racing, rallying, competition or speed/endurance trials of any kind.

But Hyundai’s warranty does extend to the racetrack where there’s no racing or timed events involved.

You might not find it in the fine print, but Hyundai Australia tells us that “the warranty covers the vehicle for a limited range of track activities (i.e. track days), but not for timed competition or racing”.

In simple terms, that means you can fang around the track in your N car – or any Hyundai model, for that matter – but not with the stopwatch running.

And that’s not something Ford or Volkswagen are prepared to cover.

At the service department, there are some other striking differences.

All of the hot hatches on test have 12-month service intervals, but the maximum distance travelled over that period vary between the brands.

Again, Hyundai is the odd one out, capping the intervals for both the i30 N and the i20 N at 10,000km, compared to 15,000km for the Focus ST and Fiesta ST and the Volkswagen Golf and Polo GTI.

That brings us to servicing costs, and all six cars have transparent authorised dealer service schedule pricing.

To directly compare service costs, we’ve added up five years of capped-price servicing for each hot hatch and averaged the total to give an annual figure.

The hatches that share the cheapest average servicing price are the Ford Focus and Hyundai i20 N, at $309 a year. The most expensive is the Volkswagen Golf GTI, at $716 a year.

In between, the Fiesta ST is at the affordable end at $311 on average, with the Hyundai i30 N close by at $335. And that leaves the Polo GTI, which like the Golf is far more expensive at more than $700 per annum ($701).

Hyundai and Volkswagen provide not only pay-as-you-go capped-price servicing like Ford does, but also give the option of pre-paid service packages, which can be useful with some vehicle lease or loan packages.

For the Hyundai i20 N and i30 N you can elect to pre-pay for three, four or five years. There is no discount if you choose the pre-paid route, but given inflation at present it’s possible you will save money over paying as you go.

For the Volkswagen Polo GTI and Golf GTI, you can pre-pay servicing for three or five years. You save $765 over five years for Polo and $786 over the same period with Golf if you choose to pre-pay instead of PAYG.

All six hatches have a free roadside assist program for 12 months, topped up at each franchised dealer service for another 12 months.

Traditionally, the biggest expense involved in a new car purchase has been its depreciation. Not long ago, on average you could expect to lose roughly 15 per cent of a car’s value just in the first year.

But high demand, price rises and stock shortages in the new car market has generally reduced the rate of short-term depreciation. This is simply because the new car often has a long waiting list, has gone up significantly in price and might be missing equipment offered a year ago due to the semi-conductor chip shortage.

This has made used car values generally higher than before, but also a headache to predict where they’ll end up in the longer term. In other words, take the values as an indication, not as gospel.

As the Ford Fiesta ST, Ford Focus ST X and Volkswagen Polo GTI are considered new models this year, they have not been on the market long enough to establish resale value. Therefore we have had to use values for the similar, outgoing 2021 versions.

With help from the experts at RedBook.com.au, we can see that at the top end the Ford Fiesta ST increased in value by 2.2 per cent, while at the other end the Volkswagen Golf GTI depreciated by 12.2 per cent. See our table below for the full results.

One regular expense for any vehicle that is not covered by regular servicing is the cost of tyres. Given these are performance cars, you might think that good tyre replacements would be pricey, but as it turns out, they were not as expensive as we might have expected.

Given that many buyers decide that they would like to try a different tyre to those fitted at the factory (or if you simply cannot buy the exact same tyre anyway), we chose a price range for a selection of well-known tyre brands rather than a single price for one particular tyre brand/variant.

Ultimately, the price range gives a relative comparison for quality tyre replacement.

You will need to spend a minimum of $250 per tyre from a reputable brand to replace the boots on these hot hatches, with the upper range belonging to the Hyundai i30 N tyre replacements at around $330-$450 each.

Delving into the tyre listings also shows whether the tyre size selected by the manufacturer might be difficult to source down the track. We found that the Ford Fiesta ST’s 205/40R18V tyre size does not have as many replacement choices as the others on test, and are a bit more pricey than most at an average of $300-$400 per tyre.

Ford Fiesta ST
Warranty years/km: 5 years/unlimited
Service intervals months/km: 12 months/15,000km
Average annual cost for first 5 services: $311
Dealer service network: 240
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: 1 year free/Yes

Ford Focus ST X
Warranty years/km: 5 years/unlimited
Service intervals months/km: 12 months/15,000km
Average annual cost for first 5 services: $309
Dealer service network: 240
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: 1 year free/Yes

Hyundai i20 N
Warranty years/km: 5 years/unlimited
Service intervals months/km: 12 months/10,000km
Average annual cost for first 5 services: $309
Dealer service network: 240
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: 1 year free/Yes

Hyundai i30 N Premium
Warranty years/km: 5 years/unlimited
Service intervals months/km: 12 months/10,000km
Average annual cost for first 5 services: $335
Dealer service network: 240
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: 1 year free/Yes

Volkswagen Polo GTI
Warranty years/km: 5 years/unlimited
Service intervals months/km: 12 months/15,000km
Average annual cost for first 5 services: $701
Dealer service network: 105
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: 1 year free/Yes

Volkswagen Golf GTI
Warranty years/km: 5 years/unlimited
Service intervals months/km: 12 months/15,000km
Average annual cost for first 5 services: $716
Dealer service network: 105
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: 1 year free/Yes

Best Hot Hatch 2022 RedBook resale table:

*New prices do not include on-road costs.
*Resale value for 2022 Ford Fiesta ST, Ford Focus ST X and Volkswagen Polo GTI are based on 2021 models.