MINI Countryman hybrid running costs, insurance, warranty & tax

Although the Countryman is far better to drive and more stylish inside and out than rivals like the Kia Niro PHEV, many of them are cheaper, as well as better equipped and slightly more efficient. Finance options on the MINI are also expensive, and you'll struggle to get monthly payments down to under £500 per month.

The MINI’s price also overlaps with some fully electric SUVs like the Peugeot e-2008 so, if you can plug in regularly, this would save you money in fuel costs. At the upper end of the Countryman PHEV range, the Untamed edition’s list price is very close to the Skoda Enyaq iV and Hyundai Ioniq 5 electric SUVs, which are both more spacious and more modern than the ageing MINI.

MINI Countryman hybrid insurance group

The facelifted plug-in Countryman sits in insurance groups 26 and 27, making it the most expensive Countryman aside from the range-topping JCW model to insure. That could make cover pretty costly relative to rivals when you see that no plug-in version of the Kia Niro or Hyundai Ioniq sits higher than group 13.

Warranty

MINI provides the same level of cover as parent company BMW on every new car: a three-year/unlimited-mileage warranty. That’s pretty much par for the course these days, but it’s not hard to find companies that provide longer cover on their hybrids. Kia, Hyundai and Toyota, for example, offer at least five years’ cover. You can’t directly extend MINI’s basic cover. But, once it expires, you can take out a MINI Insured warranty. There are three levels of cover, but none will cover a car with more than 100,000 miles on the clock.

Servicing

Again, MINI follows BMW and how often your car needs servicing will depend on how it’s driven. Doing lots of short trips could well end up with the car needing more frequent attention than one that spends more of its time cruising on main roads.

If you want to ease the costs of servicing, the 'MINI tlc' package is very tempting. For a one-off fee of £299, it covers all your servicing for three years and 36,000 miles. The package also includes MINI MoT Protect, which means the company will cover the cost of repair or replacement on several parts – as well as the labour costs – if your car fails its first MoT.

Road tax

After the first year's CO2-based road tax (generally included in the on-the-road price), the MINI Countryman plug-in hybrid will cost £155 a year in road tax (VED). If you push the car’s price above £40,000 – which is easy to do, especially with a few options ticked – it'll cost a chunky £510 in road tax in years two to six of ownership. You may be wiping out a lot of your potential fuel savings if you breach the £40,000 threshold.