New Mitsubishi L200 vs Volkswagen Amarok: costs
These range-topping pick-ups from Mitsubishi and Volkswagen are workhorses that don't skimp on the luxuries. But which one is the guv'nor?...
Buying and owning
Costs, equipment, reliability, safety and security
So, about those tax perks… if you’re an employee of a company and plan to use your pick-up for both business and private purposes, you’ll pay a flat rate of benefit-in-kind tax no matter which pick-up you choose. For 2020-2021, assuming you’re in the 40% tax bracket, that rate will be £291 per month.
Why wouldn’t you just go for the most expensive pick-up possible, then? Well, if you can, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t – but your company might have something to say about that, because it will be stumping up the extra cost one way or another.
If you own a company and you’re thinking about buying one of these, or you’re a private cash buyer, the enormous price disparity between the two is likely to play a part in your decision. If you’re thinking about signing up to a PCP finance agreement, expect to pay a lot more each month for the VW Amarok. Indeed, if you were to put down a £4000 deposit on a three-year term (with a 10,000-mile annual limit), you’d be paying £723 a month, compared with £621 for the Mitsubishi L200.
The L200 will work out much cheaper than the Amarok in the long term, too. It’ll lose you less in depreciation and is slightly thriftier on diesel in the real world, so it’ll make a much smaller dent in your bank balance over three years of ownership. Plus, the L200 gets a five-year, 62,500-mile warranty as standard, compared with the three years (admittedly with a 100,000-mile limit) you get on the Amarok.
While we don’t have specific reliability data for either vehicle, both brands were ranked middle of the pack in the most recent What Car? Reliability Survey. Meanwhile, only the L200 has a valid Euro NCAP safety rating: four stars out of five. That isn’t great compared with most modern modern SUVs but isn’t disastrous, either.
The Amarok also has very little in the way of active modern safety aids, whereas the L200 comes with automatic emergency braking, lane-departure warning, blindspot monitoring and a system that alerts you to the presence of other cars when you’re backing out onto a road.
Like the Mitsubishi L200, the VW Amarok comes with dual-zone climate control, automatic lights and wipers, cruise control and heated front seats, but the L200 adds that heated steering wheel and has LED headlights, as opposed to the older-style xenon equivalents on the Amarok.
