I'm not saying go spend all your money on an expensive car...far from it. I am just saying that if the payments you are making on the car make a difference, than the gas mileage should factor in as well. If you're targeting lets say ~800 total car expenses (not including insurance), then your payment could be a bit more if the gas mileage is decent, but if you know the gas mileage is going to be abysmal, you probably should shoot for a lower payment). To say in one sentence that the car payment matters to you, and then follow that with saying that your gas bill makes no difference doesn't compute in my mind. Especially with gas likely getting more and more expensive.
Well the way I classify my car expenses probably makes the difference.
The gas costs are going to be the same for me in a range...Some months I may not leave my home, others I may be making my 62 mile round trip commute everyday. Gas is going to land in the $275 to 400 range for pretty much anything I'd drive.
Same with insurance. Between my wife and I, I look to keep it about $250 a month for full coverage 100/300/100 or better. Some cars I have looked at just didn't make sense from an insurance aspect.
Oddly with the insurance the Dodge SRT8 will cost me almost $75 more every six months than the S5. The S5 is about $219 more every 6 months than my current 1998 240SX. Much better than I anticipated.
That just leaves car costs. I am buying my wife a 2012 GTI 4 door, at about $27k when all is said and done it makes it harder to justify cars approaching double that
In general I had been targeting about $25-35k, but many of the cars I wanted pushed that up to perhaps $45k now. I do not wish to compromise on more than 10-15k miles on the car...about 20k for the right price and condition.
I had been debating just buying new, but a $60-65k payment starts looking like my mortgage