South Africa’s cheapest budget cars to own and repair – including the Polo Vivo, Ford Figo and Nissan Magnite
The Automobile Association (AA) notes that data is predicting fuel price hikes of catastrophic proportions at the end of October for November.
The mid-month picture shows petrol up by 99 cents a litre, and diesel and illuminating paraffin higher by a whopping R1.42 a litre.
This will push 95 ULP inland above R19/l (close to R19.30/l), and R17/l for diesel. Taking this potential increase into account, the price of a litre of fuel inland (95 ULP) will have increased from R14.86/l in January to R19.30/l in November – a 30% increase over 11 months, the association said.
“The hikes in diesel and illuminating paraffin would be the largest in South African history, bearing in mind that this is only based on half a month’s data. R20 a litre for petrol is now a realistic scenario before the end of 2021,” said the AA, adding that it sees little hope of improvement before the end of October.
While Brent crude prices have settled at around $85 amid supply concerns, pundits increasingly predict oil will push to $100 a barrel, with global financial firm Goldman Sachs predicting Brent crude oil prices to reach $110-per-barrel by next year.
The AA said it does not expect the oil price squeeze to ease in the short term, especially as the demand for oil will increase as the north enters its winter season.
It further noted that over the first half of October, the average rand / US dollar exchange rate jumped from around R14.55 to the dollar to R14.90.
The rand has since moved above R15.00 against the dollar, trading at R15.23 in morning trade on Friday (29 October).
The association said there is also uncertainty regarding changes to the Slate Levy. “The under-recovery to date this month has been vast, and the government will, in our view, have no option but to increase the Slate Levy to recover this deficit, making for a bigger hike,” it said.
“South Africans are paying at the pumps for weak governance, as one of the key indicators of the price of fuel depends on the exchange rate,” the association said.
Amid this difficult period for motorists, the AA recently published its inaugural AA Spare Parts Pricing Guide, showing parts pricing over eleven categories of vehicles in South Africa.
The AA said it identified a number of common parts which consumers may need to consider over the lifetime of their vehicles. “Based on this, we collected pricing from dealerships in Gauteng to ensure fairness in the comparisons across each of the different categories of vehicles we selected. In terms of the vehicles themselves, we looked at popular and where possible, similarly priced models in each category,” said the AA.
The guide includes 63 vehicle types, including a range of budget vehicles. The AA looked at some of the more popular affordable vehicles for sale in the country right now, including best-seller, the VW Polo Vivo, the new Nissan Magnite, the Suzuki Vitara, Ford Figo, Citroen C3, and Mahindra XUV 300.
All these vehicles retail at between R255,800, and R269,900. For service parts, the Figo wins out, at a price of around R3,347, ahead of the Nissan at R3,692. The Mahindra is the most expensive at R8,916.
For maintenance parts, the Figo is again, and by some margin, the cheapest at R8,700, ahead of the Nissan (R12,738). The most expensive is the Mahindra (21,455), while the Citroen C3 costs R20,460 for maintenance parts.
For all parts, unsurprisingly, the Ford Figo is cheapest at R53,254, with the Mahindra the most expensive (R117,893).
The AA also provided a snapshot of entry-level vehicles including the Datsun GO, Hyundai Atos, Kia Picanto, Renault Kwid, Suzuki Swift, and Toyota Agya, all priced between R175,500, and R190,000.
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