Currently, my wife & I have two vehicles. A VW Sportwagen TDI and a Ford F150 Regular Cab truck. We are moving and won't need two vehicles any more. Because of the TDI law suit, we plan to sell this back for $10k. The current trade-in value is $7k and maybe less since ours has some minor body damage. The F150 does not get much use currently so the poor gas mileage hasn't been much of an issue. However, if it's our only vehicle it will get a lot more use. Currently, we are at about 1000 miles a month on the VW and 500 on the truck. We'll probably be close to 1000 miles/month on the truck after our move.
A thought was to get something more economical, however, after running the numbers it doesn't seem like we really save much. I projected the costs of buying a new car with 35mpg vs keeping the truck with 17mpg. Because of the transaction costs, I only came up to saving about 25/month over 5 years. If I went out further, it would save more but I don't like trying to predict out that far because life changes.
Numbers, relative to the new car:
- Tax & dealer charges (assuming equal value of $17000) $1790
- Gas mileage savings 4600 - 8117 = -$3517
- Depreciation & insurance should be about the same if the vehicles have the same value.
This comes to a $1727 savings over 5 years which is roughly $28/month. It doesn't seem like enough savings to justify changing vehicles.
I'm not trying to find the cheapest option here. I would get a new vehicle if I change because the savings on used aren't enough in my market to justify it. Plus, I'd rather pick options and have an easier transaction. I'm not in a bad position financially either so this is just a choice. I like the truck more than I'd like a car but I'm not so attached I wouldn't get rid of it if it saved a decent amount of money. For $28/month though, I'll just keep the truck. I'm just wondering if I'm missing something here. MMM always talks about how expensive trucks are but I'm not seeing it with the mileage I drive. (I work from home 50% and my wife no longer works.)
Thanks.