Used test: Audi A6 Avant vs BMW 5 Series Touring vs Jaguar XF Sportbrake

What will they cost?

You might have noticed on the first page that one car is cheaper than the other two here. Relative ubiquity has made the 520d BMW 5 Series Touring a slightly less expensive option on the used market, giving it an early edge over the other two cars as far as costs are concerned.

The good news continues because the BMW is by far the most efficient car here, with an official average fuel consumption of 57.6mpg. That compares well with the 54.3mpg Audi A6 Avant and the 52.0mpg Jaguar XF Sportbrake. And because road tax is based on emissions, which are tied to fuel consumption, that means the BMW’s £20 a year cheaper to tax than either of the other two cars.

That said, the BMW looks like the most expensive to service of the three cars, with BMW’s own fixed price service scheme the costliest of the bunch. The cheapest to service is the Jaguar with the Audi filling in the middle ground.

In terms of reliability, none of these three cars has a particularly glowing reputation. All three manufacturers finished way down the pecking order in the latest JD Power Dependability Study, and below the average mark.

However, of the three, the Jaguar XF Sportbrake has the best reputation; by contrast, Audi and BMW finished third and fourth from last in the latest What Car? Reliability Survey giving both the Audi A6 Avant and the BMW 5 Series Touring a fairly poor outlook.