Originally Posted by
ScottCommutes
I also don't completely buy the oil change thing either. If you are financially at the point where you are looking to save money riding a bike, you have long since given up on newer cars and professional oil changes. You are driving a beater that might not make it to the next oil change, and if you do change it yourself, it's going to get the cheapest oil/filter you can find.
A beater car rather than a newer model makes much better economic sense for a person whose total local travel requirements for commuting and shopping by car averages only 2000 miles/year. The fixed costs would be significantly less than the AAA and IRS models which are based on the high fixed costs of owning and relatively frequent replacement of new cars.
Reducing the yearly mileage by 2000 miles/year for either new or beater cars would result in a relatively insignificant reduction in maintenance or fixed costs; only fuel and perhaps parking fees.
Only by eliminating the ownership of a car previously used for the commuting/shopping and other local travel and replacing the car for local travel with an inexpensive travel mode like pedestrian or bicycle are there any significant $ savings to "advocate" for bicycling besides cost of fuel not use.