Car repair costs: repairing the damage from a low-speed crash can cost more than 30% of a car's purchase price. Check how your model fares.(Update: low-speed crash tests)

Publication: Choice (Chippendale, Australia)

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COPYRIGHT 2004 Australian Consumers' Association

IN A NUTSHELL

* Low-speed crash tests ore designed to indicate a car's repair costs, not safety.

* Overall, repair bills for the 46 models assessed ranged from under $2300 to more than $7500.

Each year, NRMA INSURANCE picks a number of Australia's top-selling cars and crashes a pendulum device into their front right-hand

This simulates a 15 km/h crash into a fixed barrier or a collision into the rear of another car at about 30 km/h--the most common type of crash in Australia. NRMA technicians then assess the resulting damage.

The insurer wants three outcomes from the test:

* To help determine the insurance premiums for the tested models.

* To encourage manufacturers to keep prices of spare parts low--they can make up more than 80% of the total repair bill.

* To reveal design weaknesses that can be rectified when a new version of the model is released.

Repair costs for models tested in previous years that are still available unchanged are updated using current labour and parts costs.

MIXED BAG

Some new models show what's possible when repair costs are considered on the drawing board. For example, the SMART Coupe (pictured) has by far the lowest repair bill of all the assessed models, and the new MAZDA 2 is more than 40% cheaper to repair than the...

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