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Around the Internet => Antimustachian Wall of Shame and Comedy => Topic started by: Paul der Krake on May 02, 2013, 11:47:03 AM

Title: AAA: Cost of Owning and Operating Vehicle in U.S. Increases to $9,122 per year
Post by: Paul der Krake on May 02, 2013, 11:47:03 AM
http://newsroom.aaa.com/2013/04/cost-of-owning-and-operating-vehicle-in-u-s-increases-nearly-two-percent-according-to-aaas-2013-your-driving-costs-study/

The Middle Class is disapearing!
Title: Re: AAA: Cost of Owning and Operating Vehicle in U.S. Increases to $9,122 per year
Post by: Jamesqf on May 02, 2013, 12:02:13 PM
Yeah, but that's average, and includes all the finance charges on new cars.

At the other end, annual cost of my Honda Insight (purchased used about 10 years ago)

  Annual share of cost:      $850   (Decreasing over time as I keep it)
  Insurance                       $300
  Gas                                $350  (7000 mi/year, 70 mpg @ $3.50/gal) 
  Registration                     $50
  Maintenance                    $50  (If that)

So $1600 total, or less than 18% of the average.

Title: Re: AAA: Cost of Owning and Operating Vehicle in U.S. Increases to $9,122 per year
Post by: Spork on May 02, 2013, 12:24:33 PM
They do this "sky is falling" thing every year.  I did my own (http://sporkintheeye.blogspot.com/2009/04/aaa-figures-out-cost-of-auto-per-year.html) back in 2009 with a whole herd of gas-guzzling vehicles and came up way below their estimates.  (I've since started working to both thin the herd and increase the mpg.)
Title: Re: AAA: Cost of Owning and Operating Vehicle in U.S. Increases to $9,122 per year
Post by: jrhampt on May 02, 2013, 12:29:45 PM
Yeah...I'm not really sure how it's possible to average $9k owning/operating/maintaining a vehicle every single year unless you're driving everywhere and buying new cars all the time.
Title: Re: AAA: Cost of Owning and Operating Vehicle in U.S. Increases to $9,122 per year
Post by: ketchup on May 02, 2013, 12:59:16 PM
I'm up around $4K in the past year including the cost of buying my car, maintaining it, filling it with gas, fixing it when things went wrong, insuring it, and driving 20.5K miles.  And I thought this was a lot.
Title: Re: AAA: Cost of Owning and Operating Vehicle in U.S. Increases to $9,122 per year
Post by: dragoncar on May 02, 2013, 01:31:42 PM
Edmuds (I didn't look at aaa) typically assumes very conservative maintanence and repair costs.  Meaning unrealistically pricey.  Not sure that would make a dent in $9k per year though.

Edit: I can see where they might get this if I take my car, assume 15k driven per year, and assume I get a new one every 5 years.  Assume insurance rates are higher cause there are teenagers in the house or speedy mcapeederson gets a lot of tickets or has a high horsepower engine.  This doesn't even include a few K for mags, spinners, custom dragon paint job, headlight eyelashes, fuzzy dice, and spoiler add on.
Title: Re: AAA: Cost of Owning and Operating Vehicle in U.S. Increases to $9,122 per year
Post by: Spork on May 02, 2013, 01:36:20 PM
I spent about what their estimate for 1 car on 4.  (Yes, 4 is too many.  I know.)  2 of the 4 were monster gas slurping V8s.  One of the four is a "my parts are hard to find and expensive."
Title: Re: AAA: Cost of Owning and Operating Vehicle in U.S. Increases to $9,122 per year
Post by: Rural on May 03, 2013, 05:42:47 AM
I spent about what their estimate for 1 car on 4.  (Yes, 4 is too many.  I know.)  2 of the 4 were monster gas slurping V8s.  One of the four is a "my parts are hard to find and expensive."

Don't feel bad; we have five, although one will be sold once he gets it running again.

Oh, and we have a parts car for the primary commuter, though it made us money rather than the opposite since the insurance company paid out more than it cost us when I was hit by an F250 after four years of daily driving. I drove it home (only really bent in the trunk), then they totaled it and sent us a check. It has since saved us purchasing a valve that stopped up on the "new" one, and will provide the next replacement tires, too.

The multiple vehicle business is a country thing, I think. If a vehicle won't go, the backup plan has to be another vehicle we have here, that or wait for relatives or friends to get off work and ride to the rescue. There are no other options. Since we don't want to impose on others and we do want to get to work on time, and on the same day that we have car trouble, we have backups.

Annual cost for all five is under $2K, though, even with amortizing purchase price. Helps that the newest is my luxury 2003 Kia Rio. It cost me $1200, and it's not our cheapest purchase. Another thing that the multiple vehicles buy is time to look for a bargain in replacing vehicles.
Title: Re: AAA: Cost of Owning and Operating Vehicle in U.S. Increases to $9,122 per year
Post by: Spork on May 03, 2013, 07:14:57 AM
I spent about what their estimate for 1 car on 4.  (Yes, 4 is too many.  I know.)  2 of the 4 were monster gas slurping V8s.  One of the four is a "my parts are hard to find and expensive."

Don't feel bad; we have five, although one will be sold once he gets it running again.


<cough> ... sold #5 earlier this week, though we only had 5 for a couple of months during a replacement.  The upside is that the sold one was one of the monster V8s.

Helps that the newest is my luxury 2003 Kia Rio. It cost me $1200, and it's not our cheapest purchase.
My cheapest was my pickup that I traded for a large pizza (with everything).
Title: Re: AAA: Cost of Owning and Operating Vehicle in U.S. Increases to $9,122 per year
Post by: MrsPete on May 03, 2013, 07:28:36 AM
Car costs vary so widely that averages mean nothing, but this made me curious, so I did my own calculations: 

My '08 car was purchased new at the end of '07 for not quite $19,507 total, out-the-door cost -- so I've had it six years, and I'm going to guess that I'll have it another six (I say six because that's when my kids'll both be out of college, but realistically I won't get rid of it 'til it's dead).  So I'm going to say that I've "used" half the initial purchase price:  $10,000. 

It gets roughly 40 miles to the gallon, and I have approximately 65,000 miles on it. If we estimate that gas is $3.50, that means I've spent approximately $5,687 on gas.  That's a very rough estimate because gas was $2 when I bought the car, and for a while it was $4. 

I pay my insurance by the year, have a high deductible and a perfect driving record.  I think the insurance portion that goes for my car (not our house or our other two cars) is roughly $400/year. 

I put on new tires once, which I think cost about $300.  Admittedly, I've probably used up my maintenance-free years, but at this point it seems to be in perfect running order. 

I change my oil religiously, so that means about 20 times since I've owned the car.  At $10/oil change, that's about $200 over the six years. 

Admitedly, lots of assumptions here, but I'm thinking I spend about .28/mile . . . or about $3,097 per year to drive this car.  Even if I've made a mistake somewhere, I'm way below the "average".  Oops -- I just remembered something else:  I bought a Lifetime Alignment on my car, which was $150-ish.  Every time I go to the mall, I leave my car at Firestone and have it aligned -- this keeps my tires in better condition.  I didn't include that $150-something in my cost analysis. 

Someone might point out that I didn't include depreciation.  Correct.  My last two cars I've driven 'til they simply wouldn't go anymore, and it wasn't worthwhile to have them fixed.  I literally gave away the last two cars to the Kidney Foundation.  I will never trade this car for another one, so its value to me is in the usefulness.  I never expect to get a penny back for it. 





Title: Re: AAA: Cost of Owning and Operating Vehicle in U.S. Increases to $9,122 per year
Post by: Spork on May 03, 2013, 07:34:59 AM

Someone might point out that I didn't include depreciation.  Correct.  My last two cars I've driven 'til they simply wouldn't go anymore, and it wasn't worthwhile to have them fixed.  I literally gave away the last two cars to the Kidney Foundation.  I will never trade this car for another one, so its value to me is in the usefulness.  I never expect to get a penny back for it.

This is sort of my take as well...  I actually do some exercise in depreciation every year or so, just to keep my net worth correct... but if you have a car for a really long time, purchase it used and drive it to zero, it's not overly important.  (Yeah, it's there, but it isn't overly important.)

I've also got one that I've owned for 30 years and is worth more now than what I paid for it.  I wouldn't dream of tacking appreciation into the yearly cost of that one either.
Title: Re: AAA: Cost of Owning and Operating Vehicle in U.S. Increases to $9,122 per year
Post by: Zaga on May 03, 2013, 12:39:00 PM
Right, that's average.  I'd like to see what the median is, a much more useful number in a lot of cases.
Title: Re: AAA: Cost of Owning and Operating Vehicle in U.S. Increases to $9,122 per year
Post by: dragoncar on May 03, 2013, 01:26:17 PM
Right, that's average.  I'd like to see what the median is, a much more useful number in a lot of cases.

It's probably not even that.  They probably took average price times average depreciation, using average vehicle gas mileage with average miles driven and average gas prices, etc etc.  averages of averages don't usually work as well as you'd hope.
Title: Re: AAA: Cost of Owning and Operating Vehicle in U.S. Increases to $9,122 per year
Post by: Zaga on May 03, 2013, 09:40:00 PM
That's quite true.