Best Small Car 2021: Ownership costs

Until recently, you never really knew if your new car was good value to own until the bills started rolling in – in some cases, unpleasantly large ones.

But as competition increased and buyers came to expect transparency with ownership costs, car companies started to offer attractive incentives with aftersales measures like capped-price servicing, pre-paid service plans, longer warranty periods and even free roadside assistance.

Some even provide further sweeteners such as a free loan car while yours is being serviced.

With depreciation being the biggest cost of new-car ownership, it is also easier than ever to reliably estimate resale value and therefore the total ownership cost of your ride.

All of these Best Small Car 2021 contenders vary when it comes to these important considerations once you’ve driven out of the showroom, making some better value than others over the longer term.

Warranties are getting longer and more comprehensive all the time, and every small car on test here is covered for at least five years – with no limit to the kilometres you travel over that period.

But the Kia Cerato is the only car here to go better than a full five-year warranty, with its generous seven-year/unlimited-kilometre offering.

That said, the Toyota Corolla’s powertrain is covered for two further years once its full five-year warranty has expired – provided you can show evidence of continued maintenance as per the Toyota service schedule.

Free roadside assistance is becoming a common feature bundled with a new-car warranty, and all the small cars here except the Toyota Corolla have this cover included – for some, if not all, of the warranty period.

Only the Honda Civic and the Mazda3 have a five-year free roadside assist offering to match their warranty period. Except for Toyota, which runs a paid roadside assist program, the others brands simply offer the benefit for a year without any strings attached.

With the Ford Focus, Hyundai i30, Kia Cerato, Skoda Scala and Volkswagen Golf, roadside assist is extended for a year each time your car has an annual authorised dealer service.

As you might expect, every car needs servicing on an annual basis, but the recommended distance between services vary. For those who clock up lots of kilometres, the Ford Focus, Skoda Scala, Toyota Corolla and Volkswagen Golf offer the best distance interval with 15,000km between services.

The Subaru Impreza has 12,500km distance intervals, while for the Honda Civic, Hyundai i30, Kia Cerato and Mazda3 it’s 10,000km.

All models here are offered with capped-price servicing (CPS), ensuring that an authorised participating dealer will not charge you more than the advertised capped price for a scheduled service.

Skoda, Subaru and Volkswagen also provide pre-paid service offerings, which are useful for those who want to bundle service costs into a lease – and can also be cheaper. For example, a Skoda Scala costs $280 per year over a five-year pre-paid plan versus $489 per year pay-as-you-go.

Skoda also offers various levels of service subscription plans for up to 10 services. Fees are payable monthly.

For the sake of this comparison, where most manufacturers only offer a pay-as-you-go CPS, we have not included any pre-paid or monthly package prices in our table below.

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 Honda Civic is cheapest at $125 per annual service over five years, while the Volkswagen Golf is the most expensive at $579 per annual service over the same period.

With the largest expense of owning a new car normally being its depreciation, we have included projected depreciation figures. Using resale figures from the specialists at RedBook for 2020 models, the small cars reviewed here have a rate of depreciation of less than zero to 16 per cent after one year.

In this unusual 2021 car market, where used values have improved and many new models are in tight supply due to a global semi-conductor shortage and COVID-related production delays, the age-old saying that a car loses value the moment you drive it off the showroom floor doesn’t necessarily apply.

Demand for new and used cars during the pandemic has seen the projected value of a Toyota Corolla slightly increase and a Honda Civic stay the same as its new price. Meanwhile, a Skoda Scala is projected to lose 16 per cent of its value in its first year on the road.

It’s not unusual to be presented with a bill of more than $1000 for a new set of tyres these days, so this is a significant cost of ownership.

Bear in mind there is a huge variety in quality and price for tyres, not even accounting for regular sales promotions in the very competitive tyre market.

The Ford Focus and Honda Civic are the cheapest for tyre replacement at about $150-$200 per corner, while the Mazda3 has the most expensive hoops at about $250-$300 each.

While the Skoda’s 205/45R18 tyres are not overly expensive at about $200-$250 each, they are potentially a hard-to-get size. Only two different tyre choices came up, against dozens of different tyre options for all the other small cars here.

Ford Focus 1.5 ST-Line
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: 180
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: 1 year free/Yes

Honda Civic RS
Warranty years/km: 5 years/unlimited
Service intervals months/km: 12 months/10,000km
Average annual cost for first 5 services: $125
Dealer service network: 97
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: 5 years free/No

Hyundai i30 N Line Premium
Warranty years/km: 5 years/unlimited
Service intervals months/km: 12 months/10,000km
Average annual cost for first 5 services: $299
Dealer service network: 164
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: 1 year free/Yes

Kia Cerato GT
Warranty years/km: 7 years/unlimited
Service intervals months/km: 12 months/10,000km
Average annual cost for first 5 services: $378
Dealer service network: 199
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: 1 year free/Yes

Mazda3 G25 Astina
Warranty years/km: 5 years/unlimited
Service intervals months/km: 12 months/10,000km
Average annual cost for first 5 services: $340
Dealer service network: 199
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: 5 years free/No

Skoda Scala Signature
Warranty years/km: 5 years/unlimited
Service intervals months/km: 12 months/15,000km
Average annual cost for first 5 services: $489
Dealer service network: 36
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: 1 year free/Yes

Subaru Impreza 2.0i-S
Warranty years/km: 5 years/unlimited
Service intervals months/km: 12 months/12,500km
Average annual cost for first 5 services: $486
Dealer service network: 114
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: 1 year free/No

Toyota Corolla ZR
Warranty years/km: 5 years/unlimited
Service intervals months/km: 12 months/15,000km
Average annual cost for first 5 services: $180
Dealer service network: 200
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: None/No

Volkswagen Golf R-Line
Warranty years/km: 5 years/unlimited
Service intervals months/km: 12 months/15,000km
Average annual cost for first 5 services: $579
Dealer service network: 105
Roadside assist period/linked to servicing: 1 year free/Yes

*Prices exclude on-road costs
** No RedBook data available for just-announced MY21 Civic drive-away price. Previous new manufacturer recommended list pricing shown for MY20 model.
*** No RedBook data available for just-released VW Golf Mk8. For an indicative value, 2020 Volkswagen Golf Highline 7.5 new price was $34,990, with good condition resale value after 12 months $32,700 (-6%).