OVERALL economy of vehicles

[usergone]

Reading around on here, a thought hit me. For the most part, we look at the cost of fuel of our cars. Drive less, drive more efficiently, and burn less fuel. Usually it seems as though the price of repairs and purchase are considered differently.

If you are here for economy, you care about getting the most distance per dollar put into your car.

If you consider the overall cost of the vehicle, (purchase price, taxes, repairs, maintenance, and fuel, maybe even traffic tickets), then you will see a bigger picture. And, this shows that the longer you keep the same car, the more economical it becomes.

For my truck, I am doing pretty poorly. I am at about $1/mile for my ownership.

Another way of looking at economy is the cost per time of service.

I am doing poorly there, too, coming in at nearly a grand per month but these numbers keep going down over time.

What kind of overall numbers do you guys see?

[Frank Lee]

It varies a lot for my car; the fuel costs are <10 cents/mile but for example I barely drove it at all this winter so the fixed costs like registration and especially insurance costs/mile were horrendous (unfortunately a person needs to carry coverage on something continuously or else the insurance companies rake you over the coals when you want to get back on) but if I drive it more the insurance costs/mile go down. In fact this winter I paid more than double the cents/mile for insurance than I did for fuel and I doubt anyone has cheaper insurance than me!!!

Maintenance and repairs are virtually nothing as I do 99% of the work (the only thing I hire out is tire mount/dismounting) and I use scrapyard parts when possible and besides, it's a Ford so I don't have to work on it very much.

[fjasper]

I was planning on selling my old gas hog and getting a new Fiesta or Elantra, but when I ran the numbers, even at 4.50/gallon, it was cheaper to feed the gashog than to eat the depreciation, etc., on a new one.

So I'm modding my old car for practice, and when I get it figured out, I'll mod the gas hog and see if I can bump it up 20-30%. (I'm really hoping for 55%-30mpg, but I try not to set myself up for failure if it's not necessary. )

Crude little total-cost-of-ownership spreadsheet attached.

[Ryland]

I haven't sat down to add it all up in a while but in my fuel log note book I do keep track of every vehicle related cost and at one point in time figured between 22 and 26 cents per mile depending on if you figured the car had any value left.
Like Frank, I spend almost as much on insurance as I do on fuel and I thought my insurance was cheaper then any one else's, but I on the other hand buy new parts, a good handful of them from the dealership, because things like exhaust for Honda's have a life time warranty to the person who buys them and my civic vx is rust free so I figure spending a little extra to make it last another 200,000 miles might be worth it.
I should sit down and add it all up like I said, but just a guess would put my costs at around 20 cents per mile not including the cost of buying the car as every car I've owned I've broken even on or made profit by selling or being totaled by insurance.

[cfg83]

thecheese429 -

I made a special "1-MPG trip log" where I track car modifications and servicing :

Car Modifications

The idea was to be able to cross-reference mods to what happens in the fuel log. However, I have NOT been rigorous about it and I haven't included costs, so it's useless for calculating overall costs.

I compare my cost of ownership to owning a new car, which would entail :

- Probably $200 month minimum payments => $2400 per year
- Higher insurance
- Higher registration fees

When I look at it from a *relative* POV my car doesn't cost much.

CarloSW2

[SoobieOut]

Edmunds has a Cost TO Own calculator on it's website. Nice little tool if your comparing which car to buy. Or if you are Jay Leno, just buy them all

True Cost to Own (TCO) Calculator on Edmunds.com

[NHRABill]

Total cost to ownership I am killing it in my big truck. I have kept good records since i purchased the truck and have a cool little app on my phone that keeps all of my fuel and maintenance costs and runs the numbers for me.

My big advantage is parts are dirt cheap and I do all of my own work. Since I bought it nothing has needed repair other than what I knew already and general maintenance. My big downfall is I am in a state with the highest auto insurance rates in the country. I only carry basic coverage on the truck because its value is next to nothing.

I have only had this for almost a year and even with bad fuel mileage the cost of ownership will be great the longer I keep it. right now I am @ $6.98 for a day overall minus insurance. My new insurance policy costs $398 a year with basic coverage which is $1.09 for a grand total of $8.07 a day ...

Next year I won't have the vehicle purchase expense and other expense like tires rims and the cost of Paint that I had this year.

[JasonG]

Yeah, my '94 begged me for some new paint last year. Couldn't be believe Lowes wanted almost $5 for 2 cans of appliance paint !
Oh well, still cheaper than truck payments.

[usergone]

blending $3/gallon fuel (biodiesel) and $1/gallon fuel (WMO) will lower my weekly or tankly cost per mile, but when looking at the lifetime of the truck it still sucks.

When I say overall, I mean more like "lifetime." How much it has cost on average to own and operate the vehicle for the entirety of its life (in your ownership).

Going with a 500 dollar pickup would be more economical for lots (many lots) of miles than going with even a 1500 dollar nicer "efficient" car (even if one got 15 and the other 30). But, also, the 300 dollar metro blows this all out of the league!

[California98Civic]

Important question, since it is a significant motivator, at least psychologically, for modding and hypermiling. I bought my 1998 civic in 2001 with 27,000 miles on it for $11,000. It was a dealer buy, so it had a warranty at the time. I bought it for the 5-speed manual, the high efficiency ratings, and the durability. But it's also just a good looking simple car. It now has 177,500 miles on it and has never left me at the side of the road. But as some major repairs have come along in the last three years, I have spent about 1000 per year on the car (far less than a monthly payment). My mods are still being tested for this vehicle (grille blocks, mirror deletes, weight reduction, WAI), but I have not spent much at all. Some coroplast and convex mirrors. I'm waiting for an Ultra Gauge. My expenses have been about $150.00. It looks like I am saving $30-45 a month on fuel at current prices. I'm delaying LRR tires until I need tires, and delaying fluid changes until I need fluids... so I won't count those as costs of ecomodding, but as costs of ownership.