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I bought a high mileage car in 2006 when I knew my commute was going to stay at 90 miles a day, round trip, and my 22 mpg car reached 130,000 miles. I did a spreadsheet for the top ten cars I considered, calculated mileage at an "outrageous" $3 per gallon and came up with a short list of three cars.
But in the end, my decision was not just based on dollar savings; a major factor was the comparable comfort of the cars, knowing that I would spend up to 10% of my time behind the wheel each day. So while I average 49 MPG week after week, I could have still been "money ahead" ... even at the $4.24 per gallon I paid yesterday ... if I had gone with the cheapest, but lower mileage car on my list.
Besides bad math skills, there are other intangibles: justifying a new purchase to the "Finance Committee", for instance.
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