Luxury Advice

Sure, we all know things are tough, but clearly they’re less tough for some of us, because luxury car sales - and we mean genuinely luxury ones - have been on the rise over the past decade.

What is the definition of a luxury car? It may seem like an obvious question to answer, but like so many things in life, once you start to really examine it and scratch beneath the surface, defining a luxury car isn’t quite as simple as it first appears.

Thanks to a more simplified range of variants and a more competitive luxury car environment which now puts a focus on inclusive service packs, Jaguar products are now more affordable to own.All cars and SUVs in Jaguar’s current line-up are covered by five-year service packs which are purchased separately from the car up to and including the date of the first service interval.Each pack has a set value, and also includes a matching five years of roadside assistance. This also matches the five-year and unlimited kilometre warranty.High-voltage battery components in electrified vehicles, meanwhile, are covered by a separate industry-standard eight-year and 160,000km warranty.Service intervals will vary depending on vehicle and usage. Like BMW models, Jaguars now have condition-based servicing, so the vehicle computer will inform you when it is time to service it.Buying an F-Type sports coupe or an I-Pace electric SUV includes five years of complimentary servicing.In summary: Jaguar’s simplified range and a more competitive premium car environment have resulted in a much more impressive ownership promise for a brand that was once known for being particularly expensive in this department. In the past few years it has improved out of sight. However, there are still question marks over the condition-based servicing or what happens when the first five years of included services run out. Some rival premium brands also have more comprehensive ownership packages - 7/10If you want to find out more about a specific manufacturer's capped price servicing, please see below:

Land Rover was once notorious for expensive servicing but since the introduction of all-inclusive service plans in a more competitive premium car market, things are significantly better.Servicing for Land Rover models is now purchased as a five-year plan, to be bundled in with the car, or purchased separately up until the time of the first service interval.Each plan comes with a matching five years of roadside assistance, and Land Rover models are now also covered by a five-year and unlimited kilometre warranty.Like its Jaguar sister brand, Land Rovers now have condition-based servicing, meaning the car’s computer will tell you when it is time to visit a workshop.The five-year plans are also competitively priced and cover either 102,000km worth of servicing or 130,000km of servicing depending on the drivetrain chosen.While the brand fields a large array of models, its increasingly simplified number of powertrains makes pricing of each program a bit more easy to understand. As a bonus for owners, servicing for all variants of the halo Range Rover for the first five years is complimentary.In summary: Land Rover fixed-service plans are well worth bundling in at the time of purchase and demonstrate vastly improved value over servicing as-you-go. However, some rival premium brands offer additional extras under their ownership programs so things could always be better - 7/10If you want to find out more about a specific manufacturer's capped price servicing, please see below:

​You might think that when a brand offers a capped-price servicing plan, you, as the customer, will get a good deal when it comes to maintenance costs. Thankfully, that's now the case for Volvo Cars Australia.In short, Volvo had one of the most expensive service setups in the Australian market, capped pricing or no, but that's pleasingly changed - significantly so.The company now offers two levels of capped-price service plans, as buyers can opt for a three-year/45,000km or five-year/75,000km plan.See the table below to see how each of the different models stacks up. You'll find that they're consistently priced.As is the standard for the premium brands, Volvo offers a five-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty.

Mercedes-Benz Australia offers its customers a three-year capped-price servicing, which covers all models - from the entry-level A-Class all the way up to those thumping Mercedes-AMG models

In early 2020, Japanese luxury brand Lexus joined the rest of the developed automotive world by finally announcing a form of capped-price servicing for its model range.When the brand’s Encore ownership program was updated, Lexus finally added a level of assured price servicing to its ownership program for all models sold from January 1, 2020.The Lexus Capped Price Servicing plan spans a three-year duration for all models in the range, bar electric versions of the UX SUV.Most models in the range require servicing every 12 months or 15,000km, whichever occurs first - except for the Toyota LandCruiser-based Lexus LX SUV, which needs maintenance every six months/10,000km. It is considerably more expensive to own than the other vehicles in the range as a result.Aside from one model, prices are set at between $495 and $595 per maintenance visit - see the table below for more detailed information model-by-model.The company offers owners a loan car, and in some instances even offers a pick-up and delivery service of your car when it comes time for maintenance.Lexus still betters some of its competitors with a slightly longer duration for its warranty plan, which spans five years with unlimited kilometres. 

Audi Australia offers customers a capped price servicing plan that it labels the Audi Genuine Care Service Plan.

BMW's i8 might feature a cutting-edge hybrid powertrain and over-the-top looks to make you think it's a supercar-slaying machine, but the truth is that it's actually a lot tamer than its styling might suggest.With a low-slung silhouette, and the theatre (and impracticality) of butterfly doors on the coupe, the i8 looks ready to demolish the established supercar big players such as Ferrari and Lamborghini, but in actual fact BMW has prioritised efficiency over performance.Mounted just behind the driver and passenger is a 170kW/320Nm 1.5-litre turbo-petrol three-cylinder engine that drives the rear wheels, while a 96kW/250Nm electric motor drives the front wheels, giving the BMW i8 all-wheel-drive grip.The combined output, though, is rated at 266kW/570Nm, meaning the BMW i8 is comparable in power to a Nissan 370Z Nismo or Audi S5, while its torque figure exceeds that of the Mercedes-AMG C43 and Lexus LC500.With a six-speed automatic transmission in tow, the BMW i8 0-100km/h acceleration can be dispatched in 4.4 seconds - much slower than its contemporaries in a similar price bracket such as the Audi R8 and Mercedes-AMG GT.Meanwhile, the BMW i8's quarter-mile (0-402m) was in the range of 12.1 seconds to 12.3s, according to independing testing.The BMW i8 top speed was also limited to 250km/h, much less than the often 300km/h-plus capabilities of supercars at the time.Without the limiter, though, its hard to tell how fast the BMW i8 will go, but then again it was never designed to be an outright record-setting in pace.Where the i8 makes up for its lack of straight line performance is with its ultra-efficient fuel economy figure of just 2.1 litres per 100km, largely thanks to its plug-in hybrid powertrain that enables around 40km of all-electric driving range.That's right, the BMW i8 is also a plug-in, and is actually the world's best-selling plug-in sports car, with more 20,000 sales.The cars from 2015-2017  featured a battery size of 7.1kWh, which was boosted to 11.6kWh from 2018 for an increased range all-electric driving range of 55km.The electric motor was also boosted to deliver 105kW with the update, resulting in a new combined total of 275kW/570Nm for the 2018 model, but the BMW i8 acceleration remained steady at 4.4s for the 0-100km/h run.The BMW i8 maximum speed also remained unchanged at 250km/h after the update.However, American publication Car and Driver managed to achieve a 0-60mph (97km/h) confirmed time of 4.1s on test, though it was for the convertible version that lacks the two rear seats and sports a folding fabric top.

SUV - three letters that dominate the automotive industry today.