When you buy a car, that’s only the beginning of the journey. Cars require affordable insurance, fuel, maintenance, and lights, and possibly some parking costs. These costs can also be deceptive. A car that seems cheap upfront may require much more maintenance than it’s worth, which ends up draining your bank account over time. With the right car, maintenance will be easy, low-cost, and capable of being done on your own.
All cars are unique though, and newer cars aren’t necessarily easier to maintain than older models. They may be more reliable, but with features like autonomous driving and key-less ignition, they’re often more complex and expensive to insure and maintain. These are the best models for doing your own car maintenance.
Basic Rules
Before going in deeper, it’s important to understand what makes a car easier to maintain compared to others. Some cars include colour-coded markings on parts and joints to make maintenance jobs clear. Or, they may be easily accessible with basic tools over custom ones.
Generally, older cars will be simpler to maintain, mainly due to less complex systems, such as motion control. Plus, there’s more widespread knowledge about diagnosing and repairing issues. Having a more popular car is also a plus for similar reasons. There will be more sources of information out there to take advantage of. These cars will also be easier to find parts for, and will often be less expensive. With access to the right tools and knowledge, you have the potential to maintain any vehicle on your own.
Chevrolet Silverado/Toyota Tundra
Many full-sized pickups are designed to allow for ease of maintenance, but these two stand out because of their simplicity over competitors. The Chevrolet Silverado has a less complicated engine compared to alternatives like the Ford F-150 and Ram 1500. It also has a frame that’s easy to work with and put together with parts that can be disassembled with home tools..
What sets the Toyota Tundra apart is the number of parts available. The design of the vehicle has been unchanged for a long time, so there’s a wide selection of aftermarket LED lights, mufflers, air intakes, and more. In addition to new parts on the market, you can get parts from many Tundras of years past and fit them right into your car.
Toyota Tacoma and 4Runner
The Toyota Tacoma and 4Runner are two of the best models for doing your own car maintenance for a similar reason as the Toyota Tundra. They’ve had standard designs on the market for several years. That, plus a dedicated owner base, means you’ll never face any struggle looking for replacement parts. It also means manuals, information, and tutorials for doing your own repairs will be plentiful throughout the internet.
What’s more, the newer models have implemented new systems in simple ways. The latest generation features traction management systems with underpinnings that are much simpler than other vehicles. You get all the advantages of maintaining an older model car while still getting modern functionality.
Subaru
Subaru is dedicated to allowing as much open maintenance on their vehicles as possible. Some may be more complicated than others, but generally speaking, almost all Subarus will be easy to maintain yourself. When you open the hood, you can see colour-coded service areas and inspection points for you to take advantage of. Additionally, many have oil filters mounted directly on top of the engine to easily swap out.
Plus, Subaru has a large online catalogue of info on maintenance for their cars. There are resources available for almost any problem you may encounter with a Subaru. That makes a Subaru one of the best cars for doing your own maintenance!
Jeep Wrangler and Gladiator
Recent models of the Jeep Wrangler and Gladiator have gotten more complex, but remain simple for self-performed maintenance. Most of this is due to Jeep’s easy-to-understand engineering. The Wrangler and Gladiator feature modular designs that let you easily remove doors, the roof, and work with many parts with ease. Not to mention that you can do all this with the most basic tools.
They also have one of the largest information banks available due to a highly dedicated fanbase. For any random Jeep issue, no matter how small, there’s probably a YouTube video explaining how to do it.
Economy Cars
Economy cars of all shapes and sizes are great models for doing your own car maintenance. While the Toyota Corolla is the most common choice, the Honda Accord, Honda Civic, Kia Rio, Nissan Versa, Hyundai Elantra, Nissan Altima, and Chevy Malibu are all great choices for similar reasons. They are all relatively cheap and common. The Corolla, for example, has such a simple design and large adoption that almost any mechanic will be familiar with it.
Parts are also readily available and often not too expensive. All of this together makes for great self-maintenance potential.
Many Other Possibilities
This list above is not exhaustive, so if your car wasn’t mentioned, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s difficult to maintain. While some vehicles are definitely easier to repair than others, the right knowledge and tools can make any repair job possible. The more readily available those are, the easier your maintenance will be. Just put in the research and you’ll get great results with the model you’re working on!