What is the real cost of driving?

The IRS allows about 50 cents per mile, but I can't believe that my car costs that much, especially since I drive older cars and do most of my own maintenance and repairs.

Using wild guesses, I estimate some of the costs as follows:

Fuel = 15 cents per mile
Tires = 1 cent per mile
Oil changes = 1 cent per mile
Capital cost = 8 cents per mile (Assuming I get 100,000 miles out of the car I paid $8,000 for, which should be higher than actual cost)

That adds up to 25 cents per mile, so far.

I have no idea how to estimate repair costs or the cost of periodic maintenance items such as timing belts. I am going to guess that I spend about $400 every 10,000 miles (I figure I have a margin of error of pretty close to 100% on that, but at least it's some kind of guess). If so, that adds 4 cents per mile.

All together, I figure it costs somewhere around 30 cents per mile to drive my car.

Anybody have a better way of guestimating?

All I know is it used to be cheaper.

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1984 300SD Orient Red/ Palomino
1989 560SEC
2016 Mazda 6 6 speed manual
1995 Ford F-150 reg cab 4.9 5speed manual

don't forget insurance, taxes, plate fees, parking. Maintenance can be a real big issue or nearly nothing, depending on luck and the car. Gas is about 3.86/gal around here so a car getting 28mpg would cost 14 cents per mile. Remember, most people drive newer cars so the cap costs are much higher.

Those are definitely part of the cost of driving, but I was trying to come up with a cost per mile. Those charges are the same whether I drive or not, unless I get rid of my car all togetherAbout the only time I pay for parking is when I fly or take the train, which is somewhat ironic, I suppose.That's true.

The costs for an older vehicle for which you do all the maintenance are significantly lower than what the IRS allows.

My numbers are as follows:

Fuel:.16
Repairs:.10
Insurance: .05
Depreciation:.04


New vehicles have significantly higher depreciation and insurance figures and minimal repairs. Some new vehicles can easily hit .33 in depreciation and .12 in insurance.

Numbers based upon 15K per year.

Better way ? no, you are on the right track. You simply have to estimate what maintenance your car needs (what kind of car do you have ? W123 diesels need valve adjustments, lots of W126's eat up front suspension parts every 100k, timing chains, cleaning, new tires, oil/filter changes...)
and average it out like that. If my old 240D requried a new fuel filter at $10/set every 50K miles, then filters would cost .02 cents per mile, add that to your 25c/mi and the cost of all other parts/labor and you'll start getting good numbers.

I make money travelling at $.50/mile driving my 1997 Jetta - it sips gas and I make no payments on it, so lots of costs are cheap. I have not amortized that over 10 years, but it will work until I find something I can afford and like better =)

One thing that I we at msshop discount a lot is time. Professional mechanic time is on the order of $80-100 per hour of labor. My old company charged me (as an engineer ) to projects at mroe thant $70/hour. (I surely didnt make that much, but with insurance, travel, 401K, administria, it was probably close...) You can claim that working on your car is a hobby, and therefore requires zero time and you wouldnt be wrong
For me, that changed when I started having kids- its easy for me to justify paying someone $60 for an alignment when I could pull favors and do it myself, but it'd take me an entire evening away from my family. I can't quite put a number on my time, but since my time is limited, it does have a monetary value.
You could even argue that, if you get paid by the hour; every hour spent working on the car is time that you could be working (work some overtime?) and making money - so if you make $35/hr on overtime then you are actually losing $35/hr by working on your car.... Thats a stretch, but not so much to the people I know that require OT to survive (not a good way to live IMHO). This $35/h would be money 'spent' against money saved by not paying someone else to do it, my point is that our time on this earth is limited, and should be valuable.
this presumes that your car needs X hours per year for maintenance (call a dealer- they have a book that tells them how long it takes to do each and every type of maintenance and component replacement) and doesn't break down unexpectedly. If it does, then you need to put a cost on the inconvenience that it has caused. Will it cost to tow the car home ? time spent getting a tow/friend to help, any cost to missing the appointment you were driving to in the first place ? many salesmen wont drive an older car, because statistically, that older car is more likely to break and cause them to miss a meeting, and possibly lose a client.

Another cost of driving is insurance - easy to add that up on a per mile basis (cost of insurance per year / miles driven per year. This presumes that you can live without driving. In addition in insurance, add taxes, registration fees (some states tax you on the value of your car every year- I'd move if OH did this =)
If you could forgo a car and take a bus, you'd have to subtract the bus costs from the driving costs to see how much extra a car costs you (if thats what you wanted to see)

On the very long view, you could price out the cost of replacing your car. Its possible to make your car last 20 years, but costs will change a lot if you do this (I'd budget for a new transmission if I planned on keeping a car 20 years....) I think that most people calculate these costs over 5 or 7 years- the average life of a new car these days. Planning the cost of car replacement should definitely be included if you are trying to calculate the cost of "driving"


Just add up the cost of repair/maintenance parts, fuel and oil, for 5 years, and call it a day =)

-John

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2009 Kia Sedona
2009 Honda Odyssey EX-L
12006 Jetta Pumpe Duse
(insert Mercedes here)

Husband, Father, sometimes friend =)

Yes, those costs are the same no matter how much you drive, but most people can put a number on how much they drive per year - and do it that way. if you drive 10k miles per year, and registration costs $50, then you spend 0.5 cents/mi on registration. This is good math because if you simply cannot drive without registration. (well, at least I'm not that libertarian yet =).

If you regularly fly or take the train, you can still average those costs on a per year or per month basis and divide them by mileage.

-John

__________________
2009 Kia Sedona
2009 Honda Odyssey EX-L
12006 Jetta Pumpe Duse
(insert Mercedes here)

Husband, Father, sometimes friend =)

By the real cost of driving, are you talking about IRS allowances or what it costs to own and operate motor vehicles? If the latter, you have to include the costs of roads, parking, support, maintenance, police and other infra-structure related costs, cost of insurance, cost of litigation, the costs to the environment and the health of individuals, cost of the military and the cost of the military in warfare. An architect I know says that up to 70% of the cost of a building goes to pay for the land used for motor vehicles. Vehicles pose probably the single largest risk to health. Then there is the vast amount of government on every level that is devoted to the care and feeding of vehicles in one way or another. Then, of course there is the percentage of our massive and ever growing national deficit that is attributable to the use of motor vehicles. Motor vehicles are probably the main obstacle to growth as a culture, but they are what we treasure the most, so we live with the costs, keep our cars as shiny as possible, and hope the IRS will for ever increase the stated cost per mile we are permitted for tax purposes.


Vehicles are also probably the most subsidized product in existence due to the infrastructure that is needed to keep them and the roadway operational.

Link, what font are you using? Your posts don't look like any others on this forum.

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2002 Ford ZX2
2 x 2013 Honda Civics

But that is not how it is calculated. It is calculated with the idea that you DON'T do your own maintenance and repairs. For the first couple of years of my ownership of a new car, when I want to calculate the costs of the car, I would plug in the shop rates. So, if the oil change costs me $80 and the dealership, that is what I add in the column of expenses. I don't say "Well, oil and filters cost me $40 so ....". Otherwise, a skilled mechanic can tell you the car costs $100 to maintain whereas my wife would say it costs $4000 to maintain since she doesn't have the discounts, tools and abilities to fix it herself.

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01 Ford Excursion Powerstroke
99 E300 Turbodiesel
91 Vette with 383 motor
05 Polaris Sportsman 800 EFI
06 Polaris Sportsman 500 EFI
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Red
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Yellow
04 Tailgator 21 ft Toy Hauler
11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

The web software says it’s Times New Roman. I’m not sure how it gets to be that. I compose off line and paste the entry. The font I use offline is called Tiffany, but it isn’t that when posted. I’m guessing that it is converted somehow by the vbulletin software. Another odd element is that for no apparent reason the font changes size sometimes.

I am around .30-.40 a mile.....



Depending on how much maintainence the car consumes.

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-Justin

91 560 SEC AMG - other dogs dd
01 Honda S2000 - dogs dd
07 MB ML320 CDI - dd
16 Lexus IS250 - wifes dd

it's automatic.

This is wrong. First, you're allowed to drive (and write off miles for) a car worth more than 8K. Second, you're paying this up-front. Let's say that it takes you 8 years to go that far, you have to add the opportunity cost of the up-front capital outlay. That's interest, whether you're paying it on a loan or not receiving it on an investment.