The Most Expensive Car To Crash

The CDC reports there are over 2 million car accidents per year in the US. Some are fender benders. In others, the vehicles are totaled.

The IIHS-HLDI looks at losses by model and model class, particularly compared to other vehicles in the same group. Groups include SUVs, cars, cars by category–including “luxury vehicles”– and vehicles by size.

The IIHS-HLDI comparisons of the cost of collisions fall into five categories–” substantially better than average”, “better than average”, average, “worse than average”, and “substantially worse than average.”

One IIHS-HLDI comparison is across all vehicles of all classes against one another. These are “Vehicles with the lowest collision losses.” The lowest losses compared to the average tend to be SUVs and pickups, which are heavy based on weight.

The Ram 2500 crew cab LWB which is part of the “very large pickup” category, has a repair cost of 54% better than average among all vehicles, which puts it at the top of the “substantially better than average yardstick.” cost category.

The car at the top of the “substantially worse than average” list is the BMW M5 4dr 4WD, categorized as a “large luxury car.” Its number is 394%, about the average cost of all vehicles.

The M5 is part of the BMW race car vehicles. The cost of these puts them at the high end of BMWs based on MSRP. That figure is about $125,000. Its replacement parts costs are expensive. So is the labor cost at most BMW dealers.

These are the worst multi-vehicle crashes in modern US history.