Is a car a good investment?

No — with rare collectible exceptions, a car is a depreciating asset, not an investment. The useful question is how much of your money you keep. Over five years, most new cars in Australia retain roughly 40–68% of their purchase price, and depreciation is usually the single largest cost of ownership — bigger than fuel, servicing and insurance combined.

What is the true cost of owning a car in Australia?

Add the value lost to depreciation, fuel or charging, servicing, insurance, registration and CTP, tyres, and loan interest if you finance. On a mid-size SUV driven 15,000 km a year, that typically works out between $150 and $240 a week over five years — most of which is depreciation, not running costs.

Which car holds its value best in Australia?

Utes and Toyota four-wheel-drive wagons lead: a LandCruiser Prado or HiLux can retain around 60–68% of its purchase price after five years. Electric vehicles and newer value brands retain the least — around 39–42% — because new-price cuts and unproven resale records push used values down.

Does a cheaper car always cost less to own?

No. A cheap car with weak resale can cost as much over five years as a car costing far more up front, because the purchase saving is given back in depreciation. Comparing total cost of ownership rather than sticker price regularly reverses the ranking.

True cost of ownership · 20 best sellers · 2026-07

What your next car actually costs

A car is not an investment — it's a depreciating asset. So the honest question isn't what return you'll make, it's how much of your money you keep. This works out the full five-year cost of 20 of Australia's best sellers — purchase, depreciation, fuel, servicing, insurance, rego, tyres and loan interest — then ranks them for how you actually drive.

Car

How long you'll keep it5 years

Kilometres per year15,000 km

Paying by

Interest rate (%)

Loan term (months)

Deposit (%)

Running-cost assumptions

Petrol ($/litre)

Home electricity ($/kWh)

Rego & CTP ($/year)

Diesel is assumed 10c/L above petrol. Rego and CTP vary materially by state — adjust for yours.

Toyota RAV4 · 5 years · 75,000 km

$50,776total cost to own

$195 / week$0.68 / km$10,155 / year

You'd put in $52,000 and get back about $32,760 when you sell — 63% of your money retained. Ranked #6 of 20 for total cost on these settings.

Where the money goes

Value lost (depreciation)38%$19,240

Loan interest23%$11,476

Fuel / charging13%$6,660

Insurance13%$6,500

Rego & CTP9%$4,500

Servicing3%$1,400

Tyres2%$1,000

Running costs alone (excluding depreciation and interest) come to $20,060 over 5 years. The strongest total-cost story in the mainstream market: hybrid economy, cheap servicing and demand-driven resale.

Cheapest to own over 5 years

Same settings applied to all 20 models. Sorted by total cost — not by purchase price, which is the number that misleads people.

#	Model	Buy for	5yr total	Per week	Worth after	Kept
1	Toyota Corolla Ascent Sport hybrid hatch	$37,000	$40,865	$157	$22,200	60%
2	Hyundai i30 Hatch 2.0 petrol	$32,000	$46,030	$177	$16,000	50%
3	MG ZS Hybrid+ Excite	$33,000	$46,584	$179	$12,870	39%
4	GWM Haval Jolion → Lux hybrid	$34,000	$47,630	$183	$13,600	40%
5	Toyota Camry Ascent Sport hybrid	$45,000	$48,602	$187	$25,650	57%
6	Toyota RAV4 → GXL hybrid AWD	$52,000	$50,776	$195	$32,760	63%
7	Subaru Forester AWD hybrid	$46,000	$55,552	$214	$24,840	54%
8	Kia Sportage → Hybrid mid-grade	$50,000	$56,122	$216	$26,000	52%
9	Mazda CX-5 → Touring 2.5 petrol	$47,000	$56,950	$219	$24,440	52%
10	Hyundai Tucson → Hybrid mid-grade	$50,000	$57,488	$221	$25,000	50%
11	Mitsubishi Outlander → LS 2.5 AWD petrol	$46,000	$58,715	$226	$21,620	47%
12	Toyota Kluger GX hybrid AWD	$68,000	$64,857	$249	$40,120	59%
13	Toyota HiLux → SR5 2.8 4x4	$68,000	$67,012	$258	$42,160	62%
14	Isuzu D-MAX LS-U 3.0 4x4	$65,000	$69,245	$266	$37,700	58%
15	Mitsubishi Triton GLS 4x4	$60,000	$69,553	$268	$30,000	50%
16	Ford Ranger → XLT 2.0 bi-turbo 4x4	$68,000	$70,582	$271	$39,440	58%
17	Tesla Model Y → RWD	$63,000	$70,903	$273	$25,200	40%
18	BYD Shark 6 → Premium PHEV	$62,000	$72,905	$280	$26,040	42%
19	Toyota LandCruiser Prado → GXL 2.8 48V	$87,000	$73,555	$283	$59,160	68%
20	Ford Everest → Trend V6 4x4	$76,000	$78,294	$301	$42,560	56%

What the numbers keep showing

The cheapest car to buy is rarely the cheapest to own

A Toyota LandCruiser Prado costs $11,000 more to buy than a Ford Everest — and $4,739 less to own over 5 years. Stronger resale and cheaper running costs more than repay the higher sticker. Sticker price got the ranking backwards.

Depreciation is almost always the biggest line

For most cars here it dwarfs fuel. Toyota LandCruiser Prado keeps 68% of its value over 5 years; MG ZS keeps 39%. On a $33,000 car that gap is real money — far more than you'll ever save at the bowser.

Cheap running costs can't rescue heavy depreciation

EVs win the fuel column outright and can still finish mid-table, because repeated new-price cuts reset used values. If you hold long or lease — where the residual risk sits with the financier — that matters much less.

The numbers you can actually change

Purchase price, finance rate and trade-in are negotiable; depreciation and rego aren't. Buying $3,000 under retail and shaving 2% off your rate moves the total more than any running-cost decision on this page.

How this is worked out

What's included. Total cost = value lost to depreciation + fuel or charging + servicing + insurance + rego and CTP + tyres + loan interest (if financed). Depreciation is the purchase price minus the estimated resale value at the end, so the money you get back is already netted off.

Depreciation curve. Anchored on our estimated 3-year and 5-year retention for each model. The first three years use a front-loaded curve because a new car loses far more in year one than in year three — straight-line interpolation would flatter every car's first year by 5–10 points. Past five years we continue at the annual rate the 3→5 window implies.

These are estimates, and labelled as such. Prices are indicative drive-away figures for the volume variant. Retention figures are our own market estimates, not RedBook or Glass's data. Servicing and insurance are typical rather than quoted. Treat the ranking as far more reliable than any single dollar figure — the relative order is robust, the decimals are not.

Known limitation — kilometres don't affect resale here. Running costs scale with the distance you set, but the retained-value estimate doesn't. A car driven 40,000 km a year will be worth materially less at resale than these figures suggest, and one driven 8,000 km a year rather more. If your driving is well outside 10,000–20,000 km a year, read the value-lost line as conservative in one direction or the other.

What's excluded. Tolls, parking, fines, at-fault excess, accessories, aftermarket protection, and any opportunity cost on cash you didn't invest. Novated leasing changes the maths substantially through pre-tax salary deductions — and BEVs under the luxury car tax threshold remain FBT-exempt — so if salary packaging is available to you, get a real quote before comparing against these numbers.

Improving it. As our sourcing, trade-in and verified-owner records accrue, these estimates get replaced with observed data: real prices paid, real trade-in values, real servicing invoices. Data as of 2026-07. Free to cite with attribution and a link.

This tool provides factual information only and is not financial or credit advice. It doesn't account for your objectives, situation or needs. Speak to one of our licensed finance brokers before acting on it.

Buy it for less than the numbers above

Every figure here starts from a retail drive-away price. We buy at fleet level across 200+ dealers — so the purchase line, the finance rate and the trade-in on your current car are all negotiable. That's the part a calculator can't do for you.

See the decision pages