i’m looking at buying a new car, probably a ford fusion or chevy malibu but i need to know roughly how much $ per Km should i put away for standard maintenance so that whatever regular wear and tear comes up i wont need to go into my savings to pay for it.

5% of purchase price (maybe 1k) while it’s under warranty for maintenance (should cover 4 years). After the warranty is up maybe $500 a year for repairs and maintenance but not if you buy the the malibu…it’ll be less…especially the "LE5" I4 (2.4L) in that car because it’s a completely aluminum engine based on the lnf/lsj engines should last at least 75k before any potentially significant problems (compression ratio is a little high in my opinion). The 3.6L v6 is also an all aluminum block but the compression again might be too high for longevity (both compression ratios are in the 10.2-.5:1 range).

Put the money in some sort of fixed interest earning fund like a money market or possibly a municipal bond (non-revenue munis) mutual fund. Never in stocks/ordinary mutual funds.