A survey has revealed Audi is the most expensive German car brand to own long-term. Whocanfixmycar.com, an online car garage and repair marketplace, analysed more than 180,000 data points and found that Audi is 24% more expensive to repair than Mercedes and nearly 10% more expensive than BMW.

Audi repairs over the last 12 months cost drivers £182.94 on average – 11% lower than 2016 where quotes for Audi repairs were £207.11. The rise in repair costs for Audi tends to appear around the five-year-old mark.

The largest gap between repair costs is for the models C-Class and A4. The A4 is 39% more expensive than the C-Class to repair, and sits 28% higher than the BMW 3-Series.

However, there are areas where Audi is cheaper. It is cheaper than Mercedes for steering and suspension and electrical and battery work. It is also the cheapest for a cambelt change with an average cost of £369.92, compared to Mercedes which costs £475.54 and BMW which costs £826.22. However, requests for BMW and Mercedes timing chain repairs sit 20 times and 100 times lower, respectively, than Audi cambelt repairs.

Audi is the most expensive for gearbox repairs on average across the three brands too. For a manual gearbox repair it costs £567.73, for an auto gearbox it’s £428.68 and a reconditioned gearbox will set a driver back £744.60.

Alistair Preston, co-founder of WhoCanFixMyCar.com, said: “The argument between Audi, BMW and Mercedes drivers about which brand is better has been going on for years – and hopefully our research can shed some light on which is actually and verifiably the best in terms of costings. It’s unsurprising that within the first five years there are fewer quotes – as the cars are fairly new and maintenance isn’t needed.

“However, it is interesting to see just how much more expensive Audi is than the other two brands – especially between the five to eight-year mark. Maybe now people walking into dealerships around the UK will think twice before they decide which brand they want to invest in.”