Yaris: the real 5-year cost
The Toyota Yaris hybrid is the fuel-economy champion of the conventional cars on this list: 68 mpg combined means just £776 a year in fuel at 8,000 miles. Buy it for £24,900 and the five-year true cost is £25,762 — about £429 a month — with insurance at £599, maintenance at £450 and road tax at £190. That is less to run than cars costing £5,000 less to buy, which is the hybrid magic at work.
Toyota's reliability reputation adds an invisible discount too: expect fewer surprise repair bills over five years than with almost anything else here. Small car, small bills, big reputation. We have crunched five years of fuel, insurance, maintenance and tax to reveal the true monthly cost.
| Purchase price | £24,900 |
| Fuel (5 yrs) | £3,878 |
| Insurance (5 yrs) | £2,995 |
| Maintenance (5 yrs) | £2,250 |
| Road tax (5 yrs) | £950 |
| Minus estimated resale value | −£9,213 |
The Yaris depreciates slowly because used buyers trust Toyota hybrids implicitly — a full service history is gold at resale time. To squeeze costs further: the hybrid system loves town driving, so use it for the urban miles where it beats even its official figure; keep the 12-volt auxiliary battery healthy, the classic hybrid weak point; and insure with a provider that rewards the Yaris's low insurance group rather than a generic quote.
Our verdict: the Yaris is the rationalist's supermini. It is not the cheapest to buy, but over five years it is one of the cheapest to own — and it will probably still be running faultlessly when rivals have long retired. It is proof that the cheapest car to run is rarely the cheapest car to buy.