Car Maintenance Cost by Vehicle Type
AAA puts average maintenance, repair and tyre cost at 11.04 cents per mile, or $1,656 a year at 15,000 miles. Hybrids are the cheapest category to maintain at 9.75 cents per mile. The most expensive is the medium sedan at 11.91 cents — more than either pickup category. Source: AAA Your Driving Costs 2025.
What AAA counts as maintenance — and what it leaves out
AAA’s maintenance figure bundles three things: scheduled servicing, unscheduled repairs, and tyre replacement. It models a new vehicle over five years and 75,000 miles, using manufacturer-recommended service intervals and national parts-and-labour rates. Because it starts from new, the early years are light and the later years carry most of the cost; the per-mile figure is the five-year average, not what you will spend in year one.
Three things it does not include. Fuel is a separate line in the study. Insurance, depreciation, finance charges and registration are all counted as ownership costs, not operating costs. And extended warranties are excluded entirely — AAA models what the work actually costs, not what a service contract charges for it.
Maintenance cost per mile, all nine categories
The spread runs from under 10 cents to nearly 12. That is a narrower band than depreciation or insurance, which is why maintenance rarely decides a purchase — but it is also the cost most people assume tracks vehicle size, and it does not.
| Rank | Vehicle category | Maintenance, repair & tyres (cents/mile) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hybrid (average) | 9.75 |
| 2 | Electric (average) | 10.07 |
| 3 | Small sedan | 10.23 |
| 4 | Subcompact SUV | 10.79 |
| — | National average, all categories | 11.04 |
| 5 | Half-ton pickup | 11.36 |
| 6 | Midsize pickup | 11.44 |
| 7 | Compact SUV (FWD) | 11.64 |
| 8 | Medium SUV (4WD) | 11.79 |
| 9 | Medium sedan | 11.91 |
AAA Your Driving Costs 2025, five-year average over 75,000 miles. Founder-eye-verified 3 July 2026.
Size does not predict maintenance cost
The ranking above breaks the assumption most buyers carry into a showroom. Both pickup categories maintain cheaper than the compact SUV, the medium SUV and the medium sedan. The single most expensive category to maintain is not a truck at all — it is the medium sedan.
The reason is that maintenance cost tracks parts pricing, service-interval design and repair labour hours, not curb weight. Full-size pickups are built for high-mileage commercial use, so parts are commodity-priced, service intervals are long and almost every independent shop can work on them. A medium sedan from a premium-leaning brand can carry pricier parts, tighter engine packaging and more labour hours for the same job.
Tyres pull in the opposite direction, which is why the gap stays narrow. A pickup’s tyres cost considerably more per set than a small sedan’s and wear faster under load. That partly offsets the parts advantage, and it is why the whole nine-category spread is only about two cents rather than the multiples you see in depreciation.
Why hybrids and EVs maintain cheapest
Hybrids take the top spot at 9.75 cents per mile and electric vehicles follow at 10.07 cents. Both sit below the 11.04 cent national average.
For hybrids the mechanism is regenerative braking. The electric motor does most of the slowing, so friction brakes see a fraction of the wear — pads and rotors on a hybrid routinely outlast those on a comparable petrol car by a wide margin. The petrol engine also runs less, and at more efficient loads when it does.
Electric vehicles remove more still: no oil changes, no spark plugs, no timing belts, no exhaust system, no transmission fluid on most designs. What keeps EVs from finishing first is tyres and repair labour. EVs are heavier and deliver instant torque, so tyres wear faster, and out-of-warranty repairs often require specialist labour at higher hourly rates. AAA’s figure captures both sides of that.
This is a five-year average for a new vehicle, which is the cheapest maintenance window a car ever has. A ten-year-old vehicle of the same category will cost materially more per mile to keep running. Use this figure to compare categories against each other, not to budget for an older car.
Maintenance cost is rising faster than the headline
AAA’s per-mile maintenance figure has moved in three consecutive editions: 9.83 cents in the 2023 study, 10.13 cents in 2024, and 11.04 cents in the current 2025 edition.
Two forces are behind it. Parts have grown more complex — a bumper that used to be painted plastic now carries radar sensors and cameras that need recalibration after any body work. And shop labour rates have climbed with a shortage of qualified technicians, particularly those certified on hybrid and EV systems.
The practical consequence is that maintenance is one of the few ownership costs where waiting makes things worse rather than better. A deferred service item does not hold its price.
Where this data comes from
Issuer: AAA (American Automobile Association) — Your Driving Costs 2025
Canonical source: newsroom.aaa.com/auto/your-driving-costs/
Study period: 12 months ending May 2025. Current edition; AAA publishes annually around September.
Receipt: aaa-ydc-2025-brochure-readable-2026-06-14.pdf — SHA-256 95a73f7deb85026a541d67dc5203c60970af0888c039e0a28fde56028ad54f32
Verification: every figure on this page was read directly from the source PDF and checked by the site’s founder on 3 July 2026 — all nine vehicle-category columns and the prior-year comparisons. No figure is transcribed from another website’s summary.
Frequently asked questions
AAA’s Your Driving Costs 2025 study puts maintenance, repair and tyres at $1,656 per year for a new vehicle driven 15,000 miles — 11.04 cents per mile. That is a five-year average for a new car; an older vehicle costs more.
Hybrids, at 9.75 cents per mile, followed by electric vehicles at 10.07 cents and small sedans at 10.23 cents. Regenerative braking is the main reason hybrids finish first.
Less than most buyers expect. AAA puts the half-ton pickup at 11.36 cents per mile and the midsize pickup at 11.44 cents — both below the compact SUV, the medium SUV and the medium sedan. Pickups are expensive to own for other reasons, chiefly depreciation and fuel, not maintenance.
Yes, but by less than the “no oil changes” framing suggests. AAA puts EVs at 10.07 cents per mile against a 11.04 cent average. EVs remove oil, plugs, belts and exhaust work, but heavier weight and instant torque wear tyres faster, and out-of-warranty repairs often need specialist labour.
About the Author — Ashvin J. Sonani
Founder & Lead Researcher at Cars.Zone. Digital marketer, data analyst and domain investor with 28+ years of internet experience, now focused on US automotive cost intelligence. Cars.Zone analyses are built from primary industry sources (AAA, Kelley Blue Book, Edmunds, iSeeCars, Experian) for core cost data, with select supporting figures sourced from industry aggregators including Bankrate — each figure attributed to its named source and cross-verified before publication. No manufacturer or dealer relationships influence editorial content.