Top Ten Cheapest Hatchbacks to Maintain

  • Cost

FixMyCar reveals the top ten cheapest hatchbacks to maintain.

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Ellie Dyer-Brown

Thursday November 07 2024

3 min read

These days, hatchbacks are often overshadowed - quite literally - by SUVs, which come with the promise of more space, practicality and a better image. But should we all be so quick to jump ship? Hatchbacks are better than ever and very much worth considering.

One thing that could help you decide which type of car to buy is the annual cost of maintenance - this guide reveals the ten cheapest hatchbacks.


Cheapest hatchbacks to maintain

Below are the hatchbacks with the lowest average maintenance prices.

Hatchback ModelAnnual Maintenance Cost
Hyundai i10£442.16
Vauxhall Corsa£451.23
Peugeot 208£451.53
Toyota Yaris£452.79
Renault Clio£453.36
Volkswagen Polo£455.03
Ford Focus£457.48
Skoda Fabia£459.73
Peugeot 308£459.91
Kia Ceed£461.79

The cheapest model

The cheapest hatchback to maintain is the Hyundai i10, a spacious and quiet car with a four-star review from WhatCar?. It comes with a stylish interior and a decent amount of kit as standard, though it only manages a three-star Euro NCAP safety rating.

Hyundai i10Average Price
Full service£190.28
Interim service£134.18
MOT£45.66
Aircon regas£72.04
TOTAL£442.16

The i10's annual maintenance cost is £9.07 less than the second-cheapest model, the Vauxhall Corsa (pictured below), and £19.63 cheaper than the most expensive model, the Kia Ceed.

corsa 2022
iStock.com/Sue Thatcher

Data insights

The cheapest hatchback for a full service is the Hyundai i10; the most expensive model is the Kia Ceed (£199.54).

kia ceed
iStock.com/OksanaRadchenko

In the interim service category, the most expensive model is the Ford Focus (£142.85), and the cheapest is the i10.

ford focus rs
iStock.com/Brandon Woyshnis

The cheapest model for an MOT is the Kia Ceed, with an average price of £45.05; the Volkswagen Polo is the most expensive, costing £45.76 on average.

vw polo 18
iStock.com/Sue Thatcher

Finally, the hatchback that will cost you the most for an aircon regas is the Skoda Fabia, which costs £79.59 on average. The most affordable car in this category is the Toyota Yaris, with an average price of £71.51.


How we worked it out

All prices in this guide are averages based on quotes from the FixMyCar platform in 2024. 

To calculate the top ten, we looked at a range of hatchbacks and compared them based on their price in four maintenance categories:

We added the prices from these categories to create a total maintenance cost for each model, which you can see in the table below. Models that were included in our data analysis but didn't make it into the top ten include the Honda Civic, Toyota Prius, Volkswagen Golf, Suzuki Swift and Dacia Sandero.


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Written by Ellie

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Ellie is FixMyCar's Content Writer. She has over three years of experience writing about cars and regularly collaborates with automotive experts to provide trustworthy advice for drivers that is easy understand. Her work has been featured in Yahoo! Finance, iNews, The Daily Express and The Sun. She has a BA in English literature and an MA in creative writing from Durham University. Outside of work, Ellie follows F1 and eagerly awaits Ferrari's next era of dominance in the sport. She drives a Suzuki Swift.

Find Ellie on LinkedIn.