It says consumers must be made aware of the important research contained in its Spare Parts Pricing Guide.

“Buyers often don’t consider the potential lifetime costs of vehicles at the time of purchase, and budgeting for these expenses is critical.

“Our research shows that more and more people are keeping their vehicles for longer owing to prevailing economic conditions and personal finance circumstances. The information in our guide is a critical component of proper research as part of buying a new or second-hand vehicle,” the AA says.

The AA reckons overall service parts costs are predictably the lowest costs for all vehicles, with vehicle body parts the most expensive.

The guide, wholly researched and published for the first time by the AA this year, following the passing of the much-loved father of the report, Malcolm Kinsey, covers parts pricing for service parts, maintenance parts and body repair parts and includes parts pricing over 11 categories of vehicles, including electric vehicles.

The AA says it identified a number of common parts that consumers may need to consider over the lifetime of their vehicles after careful consideration of the parts needed across the three sub-categories – service parts, maintenance parts and body repair parts.

“Based on this, we collected pricing from dealerships in Gauteng to ensure fairness in the comparisons across each of the different categories of vehicles we selected.

“In terms of the vehicles themselves, we looked at popular and where possible, similarly priced models in each category,” the AA says.

A total of 63 vehicles are included in the guide and cover the following categories:

• Entry-Level vehicles Budget vehicles Compact Family vehicles Family SUVs.
• Executive SUVs.
• Luxury SUVs.
• Adventure 4x4 vehicles.
• LCV Single Cab vehicles.
• LCV Leisure Double Cab vehicles.
• Electric Cars.

The lowest potential cost of ownership of the vehicles surveyed in each category is based on the cumulative rand values of the service parts, the maintenance parts and the body repair parts.

However, the AA stressed that the retail price of some vehicles may already include a limited number of services and a selection of service and/or maintenance parts.

The vehicles surveyed in the various categories with the lowest potential cost of ownership were:

• Entry-Level vehicles: Datsun Go – R74 024.80.
• Budget vehicles: Ford Figo 1.5 Titanium – R53 254.55.
• Compact Family vehicles: Mazda CX3 – R131 920.18.
• Family SUVs: Honda CR-V – R171 790.57.
• Executive SUVs: Alfa Romeo Stelvio – R179 210.39.
• Luxury SUVs: Range Rover Sport – R367 410.19.
• Adventure 4x4 vehicles: Ford Everest 2.0 BiT XLT – R117 037.19.
• LCV Single Cab vehicles: Isuzu D-MAX – R79 038.56.
• LCV Leisure Double Cab vehicles: Ford Ranger 2.0SiT XLT – R96 083.00.

The AA says electric cars have been assessed because they are critical for the future of mobility, but it is still too early to determine exactly what parts will be needed over the lifetime of the vehicles, and a selection of parts is listed for reference purposes only.

Based purely on the service parts selected, the following vehicles provide the lowest parts basket cost:

• Entry-Level vehicles: Renault Kwid 1.0 Dynamique – R4085.84.
• Budget vehicles: Ford Figo 1.5 Titanium – R3347.78.
• Compact Family vehicles: Peugeot 1.2 Active – R6011.94.
• Family SUVs: Toyota Rav 4 – R6183.32.
• Executive SUVs: Alfa Romeo Stelvio – R9538.53.
• Luxury SUVs: Lexus RX – R10 504.97.
• Adventure 4x4 vehicles: Isuzu mu-X – R7 444.50.
• LCV Single Cab vehicles: Ford Ranger 2.2TDCi – R5 747.30.
• LCV Leisure Double Cab vehicles: Ford Ranger 2.0SiT XLT – R5 134.09.
• Electric Cars: BMW i3 – R11 806.33.

The complete AA Spare Parts Pricing Guide is available at: https://bit.ly/3D1x3e9