Prestige and performance car owners are likely to have to pay more than double the amount for car repairs, with many facing bills of up to £13,000.
What's more, those costs are likely to rise for drivers who own models such as the Range Rover Evoque, and are planning to invest in some high-value prestigious cars like the all-new Range Rover and Jaguar F-Type.
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The survey, carried out by Warranty Direct, also shows the UK's most expensive car repair bill during 2012 - £12,998.46 for the repair of a Range Rover Vogue. That's more than a motorist would expect to pay for a Volkswagen Up!, Skoda Citigo or new Vauxhall Adam.
One unlucky motorist was also faced with a bill of £10,170.40 to replace the cylinder block in his BMW 740 I Sport, while another faced a charge of £9,016.45 when their Audi Quattro TDI met with engine failure.
Labour day
Warranty Direct says that hourly garage labour rates over 2012 had hit 'record levels', with top-level repairs and workshop bills often running into five-figure sums. Their annual study of workshops reveals a national average of £82.86 for an hour of a mechanic's time and a high of £201.60 per hour.
The group says that the average cost of a breakdown across its 50,000 live policies is £325.25. But after some research, they found that claims paid in the last 12 months on prestige vehicles reveal an average bill of nearly £635.
Warranty Direct managing director, Duncan McClure Fisher, says: "Owners of luxury or sports cars are, by definition, able to afford something a bit less ordinary than the everyday runabouts.
"But, in reality, who can really afford bills that run into several thousands to repair their car?
"Parts for prestige models will always cost more than those for regular vehicles but you still have to account for labour, which is often also more expensive if you are using a prestige manufacturer dealership."
Panned Rover
The study was commissioned for Warranty Direct's Reliability Index, and may make grim reading for Land Rover owners.
Last month the Land Rover Discovery (2004 - 09) picked up the unwanted title of Europe's least-reliable used car, with the 2005 - 10 Range Rover Sport also scoring poorly. The rest of the bottom ten was made up of other prestige manufacturers.
Honda, on the other hand, was crowned as the most reliable used car brand in the UK for the seventh year running in July, with Japanese manufacturers making up most of the top ten.
Though we have some sympathy for the Range Rover Sport owner who had to pay just shy of 13k for repairs, it could be worse.
A British driver who had bought a Ferrari 1962-64 250 GTO for approximately £19million at auction in 2008 crashed into the back of another car in slow traffic. The GTO was on its way to a historic car race before being involved in what many have dubbed 'the world's most expensive car crash'.
Written by John Meadowcroft