Which affordable new car represents the best value?

Friday, 18 November 2022

The Mitsubishi Mirage and MG3 are two of the cheapest cars in New Zealand right now.

Recently, we wrote about which cars are the cheapest in New Zealand when taking into account the Clean Car Discount. There were some interesting discoveries, like the Mitsubishi Mirage coming in at $17,963.62 after the discount, making it the cheapest car outright below the $30,000 threshold we deemed “affordable” for brand-new cars.

But there’s more to it than just the sticker price and any Clean Car Discount that might be applied. Not every manufacturer includes the necessary on-road costs (ORCs) with their pricing, and most have different levels of warranties. Then there’s the Clean Car Standard, due to kick in at the start of 2023.

There are quite a few cars available under $30,000, including a couple of hybrids.

So, with that in mind, we thought we’d take another look at those affordable cars and see which represents the best value.

In this case, we’re considering value as included on-roads (or cheap on-roads if they’re excluded), what those ORCs might involve, and the various packages, warranties or servicing promises a brand offers. All vehicle price figures are including any Clean Car Discount as of November 2022.

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The Mitsubishi ASX, along with every other Mitsubishi aside from the Express, gets a ten-year powertrain warranty.

Generally, ORCs add between $800 and $1200 to a vehicle’s price. As standard, they comprise one year of registration, three years Warrant of Fitness and a full tank of gas. They’re often applied at the dealer level, but sometimes they’re given as a blanket rule from the importer or included in a vehicle’s price.

You can get the Suzuki Swift for as little as $19,397, but you have to pay on-road costs as well.

Of the brands that offer vehicles under the $30,000 mark, Toyota and MG include on-roads as part of their pricing.

With Toyota, their quoted figure includes the Drive Happy new vehicle package that offers up to five years of capped price servicing coverage, five years warranty (or 150,000km) provided you meet Toyota’s servicing schedule, five years roadside assistance and five years WoF coverage (which amounts to two WoF inspections on the third and fourth year from the first registration date).

It also bundles in on-road costs, which means all pre-delivery costs, 12 months registration, a full tank of fuel, floor mats, and 1000km of Road User Charges for diesels.

That means the value of the $26,160 Yaris GX is quite high, albeit with the caveat of meeting Toyota’s schedules to get all the bonuses from the Drive Happy package.

The MG3 hatchback starts at $20,990 but, as it uses an old-school four-speed automatic transmission, the engine spits out enough CO2 to put it into the 147 to 192g/km ‘zero band’. That means it doesn’t incur a fee nor is it eligible for a rebate. But MG includes on-roads in that price, so there aren’t any post-purchase costs to consider. It also includes a seven-year, unlimited-distance warranty, the highest here.

Honda’s fixed price promise means that, barring price adjustments, every new Honda around the country sells for the same price. But it doesn’t include on-road costs, which for the $26,850 Jazz Life cost an extra $950 and comprises registration, a WoF, floor mats and a full tank of petrol. It also includes a five-year warranty and roadside assistance for the same duration.

Mitsubishi states its ORCs in its advertisements, with the $17,963 Mirage and the $28,507 ASX asking $550 and $650 respectively, with the difference coming down to the size of the fuel tank. They are some of the lowest in the industry but don’t include floor mats. However, you also get a ten-year/160,000km warranty on the powertrain, five of which (up to 130,000km) also covers the whole car.

Suzuki and Mazda both let their dealers set on-road costs, which can range between $800 and $1200 depending on the dealer. Suzuki also told Stuff that their ORCs include a pre-delivery inspection and a groom as well as the registration, WoF and tank of fuel.

Suzuki offers a five-year warranty package (or 100,00km, whichever comes first – three for the entire car plus another two for the powertrain) along with five years of roadside assistance.

The base GL with a manual transmission, the cheapest Swift on offer right now, starts at $19,397. You could also check out the Ignis GLX, the manual version of which starts at $19,499.

Mazda’s cheapest offering remains the Mazda2 in SP15 trim, with a $27,990 sticker price and a $1562 rebate available for $26,482 total. It gets a five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty, five years of roadside assistance and three years of servicing as standard.

So, of these brands, which offers the most value?

It’s difficult to look past Toyota’s Drive Happy system, although the Yaris starts at higher prices than the competition here. MG’s aggressive all-inclusive pricing and seven-year warranty with the MG3 is noteworthy, the Mitsubishi Mirage is still huge value at roughly $18.5k including those cheap on-roads and that ten-year powertrain warranty.