After nine thousand righteously violent miles, I had to slap a new set of Goodyear Eagle F1s on my WRX. I suppose if I had behaved, the previous set would have lasted (much) longer. But after giving them a good inspection this weekend, I noticed massive tread wear and a sidewall blister the size of my big toe. Eight months ago, all four tires plus installation cost me $644. This time 'round? $685. But hey, who's counting? Well, actually, me. As the WRX takes nothing but the good stuff, I'm now paying $3.99 per gallon. Then there's the monthly car payment, outlandish insurance (you try being a single male in LA with a turbocharged car and a ticket or three) and my propensity to mash the front of my car against, um, rocks. And let's not forget $60 bucks every 5k miles for synthetic oil. And car washes, tuneups and after-market mods that I don't really need. All said and done, I'm broke. Contrast the above with my buddy Dylan's bio-diesel powered Ford F250. During a recent cruise in his French fry-powered Ford, I was struck by the fact that his motoring didn't cost him a red cent. The truck is paid for, the tires will never wear down and all the Asian restaurants in the East Bay are happy to give him their old Frialator oil. So I'm asking: how much are you spending on your car/cars?
68 Comments on “Question of the Day: How Much Does Your Car Cost You These Days?...”
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I have $300/mth payments on my Dakota, and next to nothing on fuel costs as I walk to work.
My Crown Vic was paid for with cash, but it will need some new shoes in the very near future. My girlfriend uses this as her commuter car, and fuel costs I would suspect are in the $100/mth range.
When our Forester hit 100k miles after 8 years, I tallied up ALL expenses (including depreciation). Total cost: $23,575, or 24 cents per mile. That’s one-half the IRS standard mileage deduction (48 cents) and the 50 cents that Edmunds projects for the Forester (for five years of ownership).
Regarding tire cost: I always buy Michelins at Costco, with an 88k mileage warranty. When they wear out at half that distance, I get a new set for half price.
$140/mth insurance and $50/mth parking (car is paid off). Since I almost never use it, that’s $190/mth fer nuthin.
Whoa Jonny, 60 dollars every 5K for synthetic and filter? That’s some expensive oil.
Qusus:
Filter? Who said anything about a filter.
The $60 is for the oil.
Interesting contrast between the two extremes of car ownership.
I somewhere in the middle with my 2006 Jeep Liberty CRD. I can run biodiesel, but I would not want to do the SVO/WVO thing with my injector pump.
There is a wide world of after market off road parts tempting me with their siren song.
For reference in Northern NV it costs me $1200/year with State Farm and decent coverage. A set of 225/70 R16s runs $600-750. Diesel is currently $3.95 gallon and I get 22-25mpg.
This maybe a dumb question but how does Insurance Co know you have tickets? the last time I got one(boo Sth Elgin, IL) they just asked for my licence.
Paul Niedermeyer:
That’s $245/mth for 1040 mi/mths. That’s roughly $125 for fuel alone, leaving $120/mth for insurance, maintenance, and depreciation? Are you sure?
Last year, about $.45/mile all-in (including depreciation, fuel, insurance, maintenance, etc). Would have been a lot less, but I only drove 7k miles. 1998 passat V6 with 108k miles
My wife’s car is now paid off (03 Saturn) and should be even cheaper due to bargain-basement maintenance costs.
But we both have tires coming up this year…
Anyway, crunching the numbers, several dollars per mile for a new car really starts to sound like crap!
Jonny: And let’s not forget $60 bucks every 5k miles for synthetic oil
That kinda misses the whole point of synthetic oil, no? Folks who do oil analysis drive 20-30k miles on full synthetic.
i6: “Paul Neidermeyer:That’s $245/mth for 1040 mi/mths. That’s roughly $125 for fuel alone, leaving $120/mth for insurance, maintenance, and depreciation? Are you sure?”
Yup; in fact I have a draft of an editorial on it. Fuel costs are actual, from 2000 through 2007. Current fuel costs are obviously higher.
RE: synthetic
I’ve sent two consecutive samples to Blackstone Labs. First one had 5k miles on it. They said it could go a lot longer. Second sample had 6,200 on it. They said try 7,500 or more…
Bottom line is that while I COULD go a lot longer on Mobil 1, that would mean I would be crawling under the car less than once a year. I need at least an annual underbody inspection to check everything else!
I assume the car was not financed as part of that equation, right? Seems obvious that you must have paid cash, but I’m just checking.
I don’t carefully record all expenses, I principally look at depreciation + repair, figuring that maintenance will mostly be a wash and, with teen drivers, insurance was always a nightmare to consider, anyway. Depreciation and repair are the two factors I identified as being important in future brand selection.
In those terms, my Ravs, which I bought used, have cost me next to nothing, about $30/month. Partly this is luck, I bought them when the market wasn’t impressed with them and now the used market likes them much better. But they’ve had no repairs at all, so I’d be very satisfied, one way or the other.
Aside from that, I do monitor, loosely, other things. They’re tolerably thrifty with fuel (I check fuel economy principally to see if the car is developing problems).
The tires and brake pads seem to last a long time, which can be a significant expense if they do poorly.
Replacing the timing belts did add $200 to the cost of each vehicle at 90K miles but that’s .2 cents/mile, so I’m not terribly concerned about it. Rapid tire wear or running quickly through brake pads would easily cost more.
If I told what I truly spend on my “hobby”, I would surely be incarcerated in an asylum for the hopeless auto addicts.
Miata paid for since 1996 + 2000 miles per year commuting + $350 per year insurance (no collision or comprehensive) + two oil changes + the occasional ebrake cable or window regulator = not a lot
It is about time to take my 90 Civic out to the junk yard for good (not parts).
Sure, it is loud, ugly, and unrefined. At least it has no bells or whistles that can break. It is amazing how cheap things can be if you are willing to live without luxuries like A/C and power anything. They really are luxuries and you really don’t need to have them.
It still gets 35mpg, and I pay about $320/yr for insurance (married, age 29, no tickets).
With the cost of the vehicle and shade-tree repairs, I have paid a little over 4c per mile (+gas + oil + insurance + registration = 15c per mile) for the past 5 years. Thanks for making me figure out these costs. Things add up pretty quickly. This vehicle did get me through about twice its cost worth of reimbursed mileage though!
Neilberg:
“willing to live without luxuries like A/C and power anything. They really are luxuries and you really don’t need to have them.”
No, A/C is a right — not a luxury.
2007 Honda Civic
Lease payment — $270 / month
Gas — $120 / month
Insurance — $115 / month
Maintenance — $20 / month
KMs covered — 2000+ / month (1200 miles approx)
vs. Old Car (1996 Mazda MX-6 V6)
Car paid for
Gas — $250 / month (hooray for premium)
Insurance — $120 / month
Maintenance — $60 / month
KMs covered — 1600+ / month
Only $100 / month more to have a new car.
Yes please.
Lets see…I dunno. If you have to ask how much it costs, your in the wrong hobby. I’m right up there with ya Lieberman on my Speed3. Of course, I don’t use synthetic, she only gets 93 octane ($3.20 a gallon), and looks like she’ll be needing some new shoes here soon, but I don’t do Goodyears. Still, 225/40-18 ain’t cheap. As far as aftermarket mods go? Don’t know, don’t care.
Spending money I don’t have on parts I don’t need to impress people I don’t know, and I don’t care what anyone else thinks about it.
…the tires will never wear down…
Huh? Do you just mean they last a looong time?
My old Dakota was paid for in 1995 and I fix it myself with parts I get cheap on Ebay, so I’m sure it’s quite a bit under 50 cents a mile.
John
Here in the CA desert, I would not call AC a luxury.
The 94 940 wagon has 160k on it. I did the water pump, timing belt, radiator, brakes and various maintenance issues myself since 69k when I bought it for $2000. So Gas, oil and tires. Seem to get about 40k out of a set of $250.00 tires change oil somewhere between 3 and 4k. And 22mpg avg. Insurance is about $1200, I don’t have a sparkling record.
1998 Impreza L, way paid for.
Insurance less than $100/mo.
Gas, regular,$3.29 these days, gets in the mid-20s mpg-wise.
I’ve used Mobil 1 since I bought the car about eight years ago. It’s a little expensive, but it does last longer. Once I start to approach say 7,500 miles, I start to hear some lifter tap.
The car has nearly 200K miles on it, so in the last year, I’ve had to put its second set of wheel bearings in…$300 per side. And I’m waiting, waiting for the car’s original clutch, transmission, cooling system, exhaust and front end bits to burst.
-Matt
Good question.
Let’s see for costs per month:
‘02 VW golf paid for.
about 1,000 miles per month @ 28 mpg = 36 gl
36*$3.00=$108
insurance: $60
oil twice a year: $5
tire+ brake wear: change every 2 years on average $600/24=$25
General repairs+ inspections (just had to change ignirtion coil and spark plugs. Last year was the door handle electronic controls) $1,200/year
total: $298.
$300/month really isn’t too bad. Considering we owe one car as my wife takes the train, that’s a pretty low car budget by American standards.
As much as we wanted to get an A3 or C30, the idea of buying a house instead is more appealing (although not to my sense of hoonage)…
JK43123:
I highly, highly recommend the Eagle F1s.
Just sayin’
I’ve had very good luck with Toyos, a couple different models, a Proxes model and the Spectrum touring tires that I use in the winter. They seem to wear like iron.
-Matt
Ash78: “Paul: I assume the car was not financed as part of that equation, right? Seems obvious that you must have paid cash, but I’m just checking.”
I financed it with a loan on a rental property so all the interest was fully deductable. A HELOC (home equity line of credit) would do the same. My financing costs (after tax benefit) were $900.
If you pay cash, one should include opportunity costs instead (what your cash would have earned in interest had you not tied it up in a cash purchase).
Jonny is now rolling his eyes.
I tallied up my costs for my v6 mustang on 10/2007, after 24 months and 27k miles of ownership.
$3100 fuel (27k miles @ 22 mpg @ $2.50/gal)
$2200 insurance
$2000 maintenance ($500 tires, $800 brakes + fluids, $400 brake master cyl, etc)
$1500 depreciation
$500 taxes, fees
$300 financing
Total of $9600, $4800/year, $400/month, $0.36/mile.
6 months later, my insurance costs are $600/year – 25 / single / male / no accidents or tickets on record. My mileage is up slightly, depreciation will be lower, most of the expensive regular maintenance (tires / brakes) has been done recently, and the car is completely paid off.
Of course, now I’m looking at NA miatas..
Re. Mobil 1, we’re all aware, right, that the formulation of Mobil 1 changed drastically recently? The smart air-cooled 911 people are turning away from it in droves; we’re all switching to Brad Penn.
For an enormous thread discussing this, go to
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/showthread.php?t=367300
There are some highly regarded lubrication engineers writing there.
protomech, are you really confident of your depreciation expenses ($1500/two years?) It’s easy to overestimate what your (used) car will actually sell for. And did you put any cash down at purchase?
Let’s see..
MkV GTI
~$328/mo car payment
~$133/mo insurance
~$140/mo gasoline (93)
= ~$601/mo
~1000 miles/mo = ~60 cents/mi
I haven’t had the car long enough to add in oil changes/maintenance, etc.
# HEATHROI :
March 18th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
This maybe a dumb question but how does Insurance Co know you have tickets? the last time I got one(boo Sth Elgin, IL) they just asked for my licence.
If you got it out of state they may not know, adn they may not find out. In fact, they probably don’t. Most states don’t report tickets to other states. If you got the ticket in your own state, I’m sure they know.
I’m paying $1700/yr for insurance (at least several hundred of that for an accident I did not cause but got blamed for, whch I’m contesting), about $80/month on gas (99 accord manual 2.3 liters, about 900 mi/mo), just spent $400 for new cat conv, probably will have to spend $400 on AC, also will need to spend this year for tuneup… Since I bought the car for $5500 cash when it had 67k and 5 yrs, I’ve had little depreciation, and no payments.
on my 306 Dturbo for a year
£185 for road theft..sorry tax
£536 for the insurance
3 x £22 for the oil which only lasts 6k
+£1300 for diesel
thus far this uni year i’ve spent £1850 in total over about 11036(hands up who else has a spreadsheet for their car spending)
or about 16.77p per mile
bloody expensive these cars
Paul Niedermeyer:
“rolling [my] eyes”
Only because you’re talking Greek, holmes.
Paul Niedermeyer, or anyone else: how exactly do you calculate vehicle depreciation? Is there a generic formula, or a lookup table? I was all set to chime in until I realized how ignorant I am of the value of my cars. (I’ve always owned beaters I paid cash for, maybe that’s why.)
Related question: what’s the difference between depreciation and amortization? I know I can look it up, but I seek the clarity and wisdom that only TTAC posters can provide.
An interesting QOTD.
Adding up lease payments, insurance, routine maintainance, new tires, licensing, and gas, I’ve got a total cost at $23,545 CAD for a 3 yr term on a loaded Mazda 3 wagon.
I returned the lease with 56,000km’s, so that breaks down to $0.42/km.
Not a bad expense, although there are substantial ways to improve that.
I also have a summer car, ‘89 Mustang. Total $ spend in 3 years of ownership, about $9000. However, I’ve only put about 3,000km’s on it so far, so a $3.00/km is sickening. Bare in mind, the purchase of the vehicle, plus a significant amount of parts as it sat for 1.5 yrs in pieces contribute to that abysmal cost/km factoid!
A fun exercise none the less!
Jonny: “Only because you’re talking Greek, holmes.”
Or “Middle-aged Man” speak.
Money (the saving/making thereof) has its own language.
Jonny: “All said and done, I’m broke.”
You may eventually want to learn it (or not).
# Jonny Lieberman :
March 18th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Neilberg:
“willing to live without luxuries like A/C and power anything. They really are luxuries and you really don’t need to have them.”
No, A/C is a right — not a luxury.
A/C is a need, even more in tropical countries like this one :S
The windows may stay provided they’re simple enough (otherwise I prefer manual cranks), but the rest: locks, SAT NAV, DVD, rain sensing wipers, lane departure and all that BS can go
friedclams: “Paul Niedermeyer, or anyone else: how exactly do you calculate vehicle depreciation?”
It’s typically the biggest (unless you’re Jonny) expense of car ownership. It’s the difference of what you paid, and what it’s worth today. The question is, who do you believe on today’s value? KBB.com’s calculator tends to be optimistic. TTAC’s Steve Lang has said that the most accurate “street value” is to look up “completed items” (completed sales) on comperable vehicles on Ebay. Can be an eye-opener.
about $50.00 per week in gas and oil..and an additional $2600.00 in insurance and maintenance per year so far.
Thank God my car is paid for and a great driver.
when you work the math,not a bad car payment for a
nice car.
but it still hurts!
Since I parked the BMW money pit, costs are down more than enough to compensate for higher fuel prices.
About 10,000 miles a year among three paid-for vehicles. Fixed costs, depreciation, licensing and insurance are more than variable ones, gas, oil, tires, etc.
1969 VW Karmann Ghia
1999 Toyota Camry
2005 Toyota Tundra
Across the three with an overall 20mpg average
$.30 a mile fixed costs
$.18 a mile variable costs
———————————
$.48 a mile x 10,000 = $4800
Ah yes, “book value”. I was hoping there would be a more scientific answer!
The 2 concepts being bandied about are cost-per-mile and cost-per-month, the latter being less abstract. Those of us who pay cash up front for a late-model car can watch our cost-per-mile decrease in a linear fashion, so long as no huge repairs are needed. Regarding cost-per-month, on our low-mile 2001 Protege it’s about $75 for insurance, $75 for gas, $10 for tires & repairs, and $100 for depreciation (a sloppy estimate). We don’t drive much here in the city…
friedclams: “Those of us who pay cash up front for a late-model car can watch our cost-per-mile decrease in a linear fashion”
How do you figure that?
Around $250/month for my 88 325is, including repairs, insuarance and gas. I drive around 750 miles a month. That equals 30 cents a mile. Sounds good.
“after-market mods that I don’t really need”
You mean like bobble heads or vanity mirrors?
I just stick with the absolutely necessary mods
like:
Dinan Stage II suspension ($2K)
AA gen III cat back exhaust ($500)
Urethane rtab, trans mount, subframe bushings ($300)
Delrin differential bushings ($150)
Euro floating rotors ($150 used)
stainless steel brake lines (~$100)
and soon..
helmet for performance driving events ($300)
aluminum radiator ($400)
M50 manifold & conversion kit ($475)
AA c38 supercharger ($4K) or used TT turbo kit ($4-5K)
lightweight flywheel and clutch ($1K)
ltw splitter ($1200)
Zenon lights ($700)
BBK ($8 million) or so it seems
and the basic maintenance stuff:
Oil change ($100)/7K miles
all other OE bushings ($400)
control arms ($300)
new ac control unit ($300) + maybe much more or a very hot summer
Inspection II ie. coolant, fuel filter, plugs, trans fluid, diff fluid ($200)
+ unknown electrical issues ($1,000,000)
So basically nothing and certainly not more than if I had just bought a comparably priced Mazda 3.
My car is only 9 months old, so depreciation is still in full force. Here’s my rough estimate:
Depreciation $6000
Interest $500
Fuel $2250
Tools $150
Insurance $618
Maintenance $40
Repairs $500
——————
$10058
$9908/12000mi = 83.8 cents/mile
Depreciation accounts for 50 cents/mile
If I replace depreciation/interest with my car payment of $217/mo then it looks much better at 44.6 cents/mile
Paul Niedermeyer:
As if there’s something wrong with being broke…
Depreciation is for losers. I buy cars that *appreciate*. I bought my ‘84 Volvo Diesel wagon for $1000 2 years ago. Now all the greenies want it, and I could sell it for $2k today.
Maintenance? 1 used brake caliper. 1 synthetic oil change, every 25,000 miles.
Diesel fuel has gone up. I spend $40 on a tankful every six weeks or so.
Insurance costs me $50/month, because I live in a bad part of town.
The car is making me money, not costing me.
Jonny: “As if there’s something wrong with being broke…”
Not at all. Been there, done that…and I’m cheap because of it.
I don’t track the cost of maintenance, tires, and repairs. I know that I’ve got the receipts for the later two (I do my own maintenance), but I don’t track the costs. Decreased miles driven has countered the ever increasing per gallon gas cost for me. I still spend about $20 per week or a little less on gas. Of course, now I only fill-up once every two weeks instead of every week.
I have kept records on all that I’ve spent on a ‘68 Mustang I’m restoring. I’m currently just over $2,000 (soon to double), and I still need to get it painted. I’m estimating another $4,000 to $5,000 for a basic paint job at a very reputable local paint shop.
I think the final tally (as if it ever is really final) on my ‘58 Chevy restoration was around $12k including $5k for the paint job.
I have no monthly payments on any of mine or my wife’s cars.