Ownership
Most car research stops at the price. Ownership is what happens for the next five years — what the car costs to run, what happens when something goes wrong, and how far you are from someone who can fix it.
These are the questions buyers ask each other and almost nobody publishes a straight answer to. We measure them ourselves, one question at a time, and we say where every figure came from and when we checked it. Where we don’t know something, the page says so rather than guessing.
Which SUVs have a full-size spare in South Africa?
Run-flats and repair kits are fine in a city and a problem on a gravel road two hours from the nearest town. We checked what every SUV and double-cab in our catalogue actually ships with as standard — and which manufacturers don’t say.
55 vehicles covered · 24 confirmed to carry a full-size spare on a manufacturer spec sheet
How many service points does each SUV brand have in South Africa?
The real objection to a newer brand isn’t the car, it’s what happens in three years when you need a part somewhere small. We counted authorised service points for every brand in our catalogue from their own dealer locators, and the answer isn’t the one most buyers assume.
15 brands counted
What warranty does each SUV come with in South Africa?
The longest warranty on the market is not the one that covers the most driving. We list the term, the distance limit and the distance each warranty actually covers per year for every model in our catalogue — and the brand with the longest term is nowhere near the top of that last column.
54 models covered · 21 different warranties · 2 with no distance limit at all
How we do this
Every ownership page here follows the same shape. One question, every vehicle in our catalogue, and the source for each figure alongside it. We record where a number came from — a manufacturer spec sheet, a brand’s own dealer locator, or our own measurement — and we date it, because these figures move. When a manufacturer doesn’t publish something, we record that as unknown rather than filling the gap with a reasonable-sounding guess.
That’s the whole difference between these pages and a list. A list tells you what someone thinks. These tell you what we checked, and what we couldn’t.