The government's price index for cars in Malaysia is virtually unchanged from 2018. Its price index for keeping a vehicle on the road is not. In the consumer price index published by the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM), the subclass for "cars" averaged 96.43 in 2018 and 96.38 in 2025, a change of minus 0.05 per cent. Over the same seven years, the subclass for "maintenance and repair of personal transport equipment" rose 40.6 per cent, from 141.67 to 199.23. The index for all items rose 11.6 per cent.
Every figure in this comparison uses the same two full calendar years: the average of the twelve monthly index readings for January to December 2018, against the same for 2025.
Contents
Transport prices, 2018 against 2025
The labels are DOSM's own. DOSM tracks "cars" and "second hand cars" as two separate subclasses. "Maintenance and repair of personal transport equipment" is one DOSM subclass that covers cars, motorcycles and other personal vehicles together; DOSM does not break that combined subclass down further, so there is no separate car-only figure for maintenance and repair, and no figure for maintenance apart from repair.
| DOSM CPI subclass | Average index 2018 | Average index 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Second hand cars | 82.54 | 72.99 | -11.6% |
| Toll facilities | 109.40 | 99.60 | -9.0% |
| Petrol | 119.43 | 109.59 | -8.2% |
| Cars | 96.43 | 96.38 | -0.05% |
| Motorcycles | 101.00 | 102.78 | +1.8% |
| Tyre | 114.29 | 128.44 | +12.4% |
| Parts for personal transport equipment | 117.18 | 133.41 | +13.8% |
| Lubricants | 124.33 | 142.16 | +14.3% |
| Maintenance and repair of personal transport equipment | 141.67 | 199.23 | +40.6% |
| All items (overall CPI) | 120.68 | 134.62 | +11.6% |
Maintenance and repair rose more than three times as fast as prices overall, and nearly three times as fast as the price indexes for tyres, for parts and for lubricants. The second hand cars index fell 11.6 per cent over the same years.
Most of the rise came after 2021
The maintenance and repair index rose 7.8 per cent across the three years from 2018 to 2021 (141.67 to 152.71). It then rose 30.5 per cent across the four years from 2021 to 2025 (152.71 to 199.23). The biggest single year was 2022, up 10.5 per cent on 2021.
| Year | Maintenance and repair index (annual average) | Cars index (annual average) |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 141.67 | 96.43 |
| 2019 | 145.19 | 95.65 |
| 2020 | 149.17 | 94.70 |
| 2021 | 152.71 | 93.92 |
| 2022 | 168.78 | 94.48 |
| 2023 | 182.03 | 95.69 |
| 2024 | 190.71 | 95.73 |
| 2025 | 199.23 | 96.38 |
The climb has not stopped. In the latest month DOSM has published, September 2026, the maintenance and repair index stood at 207.6, up 3.3 per cent on September 2025 (201.0). The cars index was 95.6, down 0.9 per cent on September 2025 (96.5).
What workshops took in
A second DOSM dataset, the monthly survey of wholesale and retail trade, reports sales by businesses whose main activity is "maintenance and repair of motor vehicles" (MSIC group 452). Their sales were RM33.52 billion in 2025, up 82.1 per cent from RM18.40 billion in 2018, in current ringgit and not adjusted for inflation. DOSM's volume index for the same group, averaged over each year, rose 31.5 per cent. These figures count businesses by their main activity, include work on commercial vehicles as well as private cars, and come from a different survey with a different coverage from the price index, so we report them alongside the price index, not as proof of it. We do not claim a reason why the price index rose.
We have reported the same pattern for household appliances, from the same DOSM price files: Malaysia's Appliance Prices Fell 3 Years Running. Repair, Installation and Hire Rose 4.3%. For what Malaysians are actually registering, see our reading of JPJ records: Malaysia Had Its Biggest September for New Cars. Perodua and Proton Were 86% of the Rise.
What this does and does not say
A price index follows the price of the same specified items over time. The flat cars index does not mean Malaysians spent the same on each car: if buyers moved to more expensive models, they paid more per car even while the price of the tracked items held still. This dataset cannot show what the average buyer paid. Likewise, a 40.6 per cent rise in the maintenance and repair index means the price of the tracked services rose by that much; it does not tell us what any one owner's servicing bill was.
DOSM does not publish the weights or the item list behind each subclass in these files, and it does not explain movements. We report what moved and by how much, not why. Index levels are DOSM's, with 2010 as the base year; we compare each subclass only against its own earlier readings.
How to reproduce this
Download cpi_5d.parquet (consumer price index by subclass) and cpi_2d.parquet (by division, which includes the overall index) from storage.dosm.gov.my/cpi/. The subclass codes are 07111 cars, 07112 second hand cars, 07120 motorcycles, 07211 tyre, 07212 parts for personal transport equipment, 07222 petrol, 07224 lubricants, 07230 maintenance and repair of personal transport equipment and 07242 toll facilities; the labels are in storage.dosm.gov.my/dictionaries/mcoicop.parquet. For each subclass, average the twelve monthly readings of 2018 and of 2025 and take the change. For the workshop figures, download storage.dosm.gov.my/iowrt/iowrt_3d.parquet, keep series "abs" and group 452, add up the sales column (RM million) for each year's twelve months, and average the volume column. September 2026 is the latest month in the price files and August 2026 in the trade file.
