I bought my car in the summer of 2003. I plan on keeping it for at least another 5-10 years if not longer.
Ontopic Transportation costs
- Thread starter dbzeag
- Start date
I bought my car in the summer of 2003. I plan on keeping it for at least another 5-10 years if not longer.
i bought a used pickup truck about three years ago.
$6000 purchase price
Tires, shocks, about $1000
Other repairs since then, probably a total of $1200
Oil changes, registration, inspection $500
Gas total of about $7800 (40k miles, avg 18 mpg, assume $3.50/gal avg over the last three years)
Air freshener, wiper blades, etc. about $80
Total: $16580. Subtract remaining value (if I sold it today) = $13080 or $4360 per year.
The interesting part of that is that I've spent more in gas than the initial value of the truck. I need something with better mileage. If I'd paid another $1500 for something that got 23mpg instead of 18 I'd be ahead by now.
Edit: oops, insurance. Add $900/year for that.
$6000 purchase price
Tires, shocks, about $1000
Other repairs since then, probably a total of $1200
Oil changes, registration, inspection $500
Gas total of about $7800 (40k miles, avg 18 mpg, assume $3.50/gal avg over the last three years)
Air freshener, wiper blades, etc. about $80
Total: $16580. Subtract remaining value (if I sold it today) = $13080 or $4360 per year.
The interesting part of that is that I've spent more in gas than the initial value of the truck. I need something with better mileage. If I'd paid another $1500 for something that got 23mpg instead of 18 I'd be ahead by now.
Edit: oops, insurance. Add $900/year for that.
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db has higher car cost because he has to be stylishly gay. Most of us are married so as long as it gets from a to b without anything falling off most of the time we're ok with it.
A small car that can run completely on electric for the few times a day I need it? Yes actually I would. Give me a plug in hybrid turbo diesel certified to run on B100 and SVO and I would delete this thread straight away.
Work pays mileage for me. So, while I put more miles on my car than is helpful, I basically have the company pay for 75% of my vehicle.
there are zipcars all over downtown atlanta. you would think I would have signed up for it not having a car for over 2 years but I never did.
they kind of are, they don't get cleaned too often. I'm going to ask them how that works because I'm not going to pay time on my account in order to clean the car but I'll do it if it's not deducted and they pay me back for it
You didn't factor in the scrap value of the car. Also if you needed a car for work you could depreciate it and write it off your taxes 
Now if you wanted to save some money you could hedge the price of gas and l2 fix it yourself but eh. You could figure out the $$ value of convience and subtract it against the total cost of the car.
Bus fares around here are $2.25 for local metro. Assuming you need to go somewhere 1 time, 6 days a week, that's $1620 per year. If you make more than one trip it goes up. Then you can add the risk premium of being mugged/assaulted, and a premium for having to wait for a service that is never on time. It would probably come out about the same.
Now if you wanted to save some money you could hedge the price of gas and l2 fix it yourself but eh. You could figure out the $$ value of convience and subtract it against the total cost of the car.Bus fares around here are $2.25 for local metro. Assuming you need to go somewhere 1 time, 6 days a week, that's $1620 per year. If you make more than one trip it goes up. Then you can add the risk premium of being mugged/assaulted, and a premium for having to wait for a service that is never on time. It would probably come out about the same.
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eileenbunny
Druish Princess
I do. I run all my cars into the ground. I hate having a car payment and will avoid it at all costs.
This
I don't drive to and from a job so I am hardly the average driver, but my insurance is way cheaper than dbzeags, my car gets better gas mileage, it cost less to purchase new, I had a 0% apr on the car payments, and I put more than 12K on it a year at first. Not so much now that I live closer to family. I imagine I don't spend anywhere near 8K a year on my car including maintenance. I cannot imagine how much the expense of the infrastructure for these imaginary pods would be that would cart us wherever we wanted to go, but I'm willing to bet $8K a year won't even start to cover the costs of such a thing. Plus, as already stated, I like driving a lot and wouldn't want to give it up. I do carpool whenever possible and use public transit whenever possible. I bought the most fuel efficient car I could find that wasn't a hybrid (too expensive and not much better than my car as far as gas mileage). I don't feel bad about my choices.
Actually to run the CTA public system in Chicago for a year is $1.3 billion. They have 1.4 million users. That's abut $1000 a person. I am pretty sure if you told each of those users:
For $8000 a year, you will have the ability of a car in freedom and functionality and timing and convenience. But you will also have the safety of public transport as well as the ease of maintenance. And you will enjoy the freedom from traffic.
I am pretty sure at least half of those 1.4 million people would buy in. That's over $11 billion a year you would raise vs. the $1.3 they require now to run arguably one of the top public systems in the country.
I would like to put out there that if you do enjoy driving, that is one thing. If you need the functionality of a truck, that is something else. I like driving just for the freedom of going wherever I want to go whenever I want to do it. I don't care to take my car to the track and actually experience the limits of a car. I just want to experience the freedom a car leads itself to.
You have done well on your purchases as most on these boards do, but in countless examples this board is not the norm. We are far smarter.