Tips&Advice

Given the average age of a car on Australian roads has increased to 10.4 years, it's fair to say plenty of us are holding out on upgrading to newer models. As such, many consumers might find that when the time comes to trade in, their beloved car has disappeared from showrooms. With a raft of nameplates discontinued in 2020 alone, the new-car call sheet for 2021 looks drastically different than it did over 10 years ago – particularly the bestseller list.

The cliche goes that motoring journalists are only really satisfied behind the wheel of a station wagon with a manual transmission – and it’s not incorrect. At CarAdvice, our wagon-loving ways take many forms, but we can all agree on one thing: it is the superior body type. While we can bemoan the rise of the SUV until we (and you, dear readers) are blue in the face, it does mean the scarcity of the wagon on our roads just ups its cool factor even further.

August 2020 marked the first time Australia’s new-car market was dominated by a hybrid vehicle. The popularity of the Toyota RAV4 hybrid has almost single-handedly driven curiosity in the burgeoning technology, with almost every major manufacturer exploring hybrid technology in some capacity.

Given we drive a new car every week, the journalists at CarAdvice are very familiar with the particularly frustrating scenario of not being able to fit a car in your driveway, garage or tiny inner-city street. Regardless of whether you have off-street parking or not, being able to safely store a vehicle not only decreases your likelihood of being side-swiped, but also substantially improves your stress levels (it’s science). RELATED: Every SUV in Australia ranked by boot size

Buy almost anything in Australia, from an ice cream through to 100-inch flat-screen TV, and the advertised is sticker price is the maximum you will pay. You may be able to negotiate the price of big ticket items down, such as that enormous television, but the law states that retailers must include the cost of the goods and services tax (GST) in any advertised price.