TealLA

My girlfriend and I are sharing her 1992 Honda Civic and I have been keeping records of the cost of routine maintenance, repairs and gas for 29 months now. Just for the sake of knowledge I worked the numbers to come up with a true cost of owning/operating a vehicle, keep in mind this one is nearing 20 years old.

We drive the car roughly 9,000 miles per year and the car now has 203,000 miles on it. The engine is running strong, however we may need to overhaul the transmission sometime in the near future. Other than that, I would say the car is doing well considering.

Here are the figures.
Gas: $110/month
Insurance: $40/month
Maintenance/Repair: $158/month
Total per month: $308

I was a little shocked when I came to this figure. For some reason I thought it would be lower. Either way, not bad when you think about it. What really shocked me was I did comparable estimates for some random other used vehicles and assuming you would do some financing, I came up with figures nearing $1,000/month....Just to drive a vehicle. Those numbers add up fairly quickly month after month and turn into a nice chunk of money year after year.

I was stuck in this huge waste of money not long ago...2005 to be exact. I sold my truck back then and haven't had a car since. I was doing the motorcycle thing for the past 6 years, but recently sold that and now I want to try and ride the bicycle more. It's not just about the money. My reasons are much the same as everyone's.

Anyone else have a similar experience with spending enormous amounts of money per month for a decent car? I'm curious to hear other peoples stories.

zeppinger

chasm54

You forgot about depreciation. Not much of an issue with a 20year-old Honda, I agree, but new cars lose value as soon as you drive them off the lot and continue to do so, depreciating disproportionately in the first three or four years.

I-Like-To-Bike

Do you plan on sharing your bicyle with your girlfriend for all 9,000 miles a year? What does she think about your plan?

enigmaT120

You're spending over twice as much for insurance as I do (I hope you don't have full coverage on that car), but less than half as much for gas. Why so much for repairs? That's a lot.

dcrowell

I can guess answers to those questions:
Insurance: varies by state & drivers
Gas: they drive 9000 miles per year, and that car is probably better on gas than anything you can buy now
Repairs: the darn thing is almost old enough to drink, some repairs will be needed

jim97gst

I have a 1997 Mitsubishi Eclipse, heavily modified and very fast. I'm pretty car light. I commute to work every single day. I pick up my son from day care using a bike trailer. I run most errands on the bike unless it's something huge I can't fit. My wife has a 2006 Accord which is the family car that we usually take when the whole family is out, which is usually to go out to eat. The only place I drive regularly is to the grocery store once per week which is a few miles away. So the car is only driven a few hundred miles per year, maybe 500 at the most. Here are my costs.

insurance: ~$600 per year
registration: ~$40 per year
gas: ~$80 per year (assuming 500 miles per year/25 mpg/$4 per gallon)

For a long time, I didn't have to do any repairs because it's driven so rarely. However, I just had to replace a CV joint, wheel bearing assembly, all of the front suspension ball joints/control arms, and the power steering rack. That cost me close to $1,000, and that was doing all the work myself. If I paid someone to do the work it probably would have been more than the car is worth. I could have gotten away with doing the repairs in a cheaper way or just ignoring them for a while, but the car is my baby and I wanted to do it right. If I drove the car regularly and/or paid someone to do the repairs, I don't think I could justify keeping it. But I love the car and plan on keeping it. If it goes back to being more like $700 per year then I can certainly justify it. One thing that sucks is that since it's used for so few miles, it costs more than $1 per mile just for insurance and registration!

TealLA

Our plan is to keep the car. I didn't mention that we have a 11 month old daughter, so it's really convenient having the car. My plan is to ride my bike more often where as before I would take the motorcycle.

TealLA

Living in LA, that's the cheapest we could come up with for basic liability insurance. Clean driving records as well. As for gas, we average somewhere around 24 miles/gallon, mostly city driving on surface streets.

We have done a lot of repairs and maintenance over the last 29 months. New shocks front and rear, 4 new tires, new power steering rack, some new electronic replacements under the hood and not to mention a new timing belt. Having mentioned that, the car is mechanically sound and shouldn't require the average $158/month for repairs/maintenance in the future. The only thing is the transmission as mentioned previously. It will need some work sooner than later.

Dan The Man

My '91 Civic Hatchback still gets better mileage than almost any car you can buy today.

TealLA

Yeah, it's pretty amazing. A lot of people here in LA spent $20,000 - $25,000 on the Pruis, they are everywhere here. When you work out the replacement cost for the batteries. It's probably cheaper and greener to drive a Civic. But then again. A lot of people in LA have a lot of Money.

Wake

Tomorrow morning I'm going to get rid of $587.18 for a set of tires for my Mini.

zeppinger

There are so many nice bikes that you could buy with $580! Stupid tires...

dcrowell

While true, I'd hate to add up what I've spent on bike tires over the last few years.

wahoonc

I did...~$450 in the past year However that is multiple bikes and most of those are Schwalbe tires which will be good for 8,000 plus miles a set.

Aaron

Singlespeed92

Wish they were that cheap for my Mustang or either of the two mini's (mini trucks,hahaha! ) I sold off recently

(a 96 S10 and '95 Blazer,both slammed and scraping,both between 18 and 20" tires...the Mustangs are actually a bit cheaper than your quote,but the rears wear out SO fast ,good think it's just about time to park it for winter )

I-Like-To-Bike

Since you recognize the utility and practicality of keeping a car handy to meet your family needs, I guess you don't really feel that your car expenses are a huge waste of money after all as you stated in your original post: "I was stuck in this huge waste of money not long ago..."

Juha

+1. In the TCO calculations I've seen (based on local data here in Finland), depreciation is a major if not the biggest single factor for new cars. Even with our highly taxed gas prices.

UberGeek

It's been said, that if you have Superior Negotiating Skills (tm), you can actually make money by owning a car. But, only with Superior Negotiating Skills (tm).


PS This is an inside joke from another "Cost of a car" thread.

Roody

Obvious to those of us who actually read the OP before crapping on the thread--the waste of money refers to a truck he owned up until 2005.

I-Like-To-Bike

Oh Really, Jack? What vehicle do all the listed "figures"/Expenses i.e the big waste of money in the OP refer to, Roody? You ain't half as clever as you think. Nor are you the arbiter of what is or is not relevant in this or any other thread on this list.

gna

What does it cost to license/register your car per year?

Fasteryoufool

My wife's Mercury Marquis uses much more fuel than your Honda Civic, but so far it's been stone reliable and cheap to insure... mainly because it's an old person's car. Which is fine, we're old.

We don't drive it much. Wife drives it back and forth to work and school, and rides her bike to either when she can. I am pretty much car-free and we do almost all of our errands on bikes.

Fasteryoufool

It is. Hybrid vehicles are a chimera - at best they're a stop-gap, at worst they're a way to make yuppie ****heads feel good about themselves. I had the pleasure about a year ago of listening to a yuppie ******bag yell at a guy in a pickup truck... I was grocery shopping at the time, with my trailer with me. I cleared my throat and he looked around at me. I said "Feeling pretty green? My bike's a 26 year old recycle... the trailer's recycled too."

He turned bright red, faced front and rolled up his windows.

Roody

I guess that left you "feeling pretty green".... until some guy on foot came by and told you his shoes had been resoled 4 times.