Why do maintaining a luxury car costs more? Shouldn’t they be more reliable than the cheaper ones?
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Because the parts are more expensive. And you’d think a more expensive car would be more reliable but that’s definitely not the case, at least not always. My ’03 Hyundai was far more reliable than my ’10 Audi. Hyundai parts are (were?) dirt cheap, too.
1. Many of them are manufactured overseas, so shipping the parts can be more expensive.
2. They often have more things that can break–your average Toyota Corolla doesn’t have 12-way multi-position heated seats, TVs for each back-seat passenger, and hydraulic auto-closing doors.
3. Since less of them are sold, volume pricing comes into play. If a company orders 5,000 widgets to repair their luxury cars, and 100,000 widgets to repair their cheap cars, they can manufacture or buy the 100,000 widgets at a lower cost per widget.
4. Any mechanic may know how to repair a Toyota Corolla, but few mechanics know how to repair a Lamborghini Aventador. So, skilled mechanics for luxury cars can often charge more money to repair them.
5. And ultimately, the “luxury” of cars is often based far more upon appearance and features than upon long-term reliability.
BMW is one of the least reliable brands out there. If it’s not the engine that breaks down, it’s gonna be something like the little arm that brings the seatbelt forward or the the seat adjustments will stop functioning or some other little thing. Expensive upfront and expensive repairs every few months.
In addition to the parts being more expensive, people usually go to official repair shops and not the local garage down the street. There might also be things that non-official garages can’t fix because they don’t have access to the right equipment so you have to use the official repair shops.
Aside from what’s already been mentioned, there’s the psychological side of “willingness to pay” as well. Consumers who buy less expensive cars are generally also less likely to be willing to pay higher amounts for repairs. Consumers who are willing to spend more on a car initially tend to also be more willing to pay higher prices to maintain it. Car manufacturers know this and take it into account when pricing as well.
Cost/effectiveness
A luxury headlight is way better than a basic one. But won’t last a crash much better. Can last longer in time, but it may last just 2-10 times more, while costing 10-100 times more.
Then there’s wear and tear. Leather is a great material, but it’s not eternal and again, so is an engine, a filter, the oil, the paint, and seals.
And this is assuming the luxury brand is honest. Most luxury items are high cost due to the style, design, and so on, but are not actually that much better in the materials used. Not better proportionally or it’s price at least.
Then there’s the elephant in the room: standardization. Cheap things made in mass are cheap because are made in mass. Luxury items are produced in small amounts and this is inherently way more expensive to do. A small production will also have more defects as the smaller quantity, smaller usage, will mean less occasion to find and fix defects. You get expensive and maybe even flawless parts, that are not perfectly functional, not perfectly fitting one to the other, not perfectly tuned… and all the weird and wonderful issues you can have with not-so-long-tested parts.
Luxury cars generally also mean bigger/faster engines. This is antithetical with reliability.
Maximizing performance requires very tight tolerances. This means small changes result in failure.
Because luxury cars have more features, they have more complicated parts, the parts are more expensive, the garage you would go to is more luxurious etc. (this is also paid for by the customer) and luxury cars are used differently. Your average A to B shitbox likely never gets pushed to its limits.
More luxurious car means more systems which means more parts which means more chances of something breaking.
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