Have you computed? What has been your avg annual cost of vehicle ownership?

[BonzaiDuck]

I don't really keep track of all repair costs, but I paid 14k IIRC for my 2009 F150 in 2019 and had a few repairs that were close to 1k and I also bought new tires at around 2.5k, so let's call it 1k/year average cost for total of 18k. Or about $375/mo. Come to think of it that's higher than I would have thought. Still cheaper than buying new though, since that number will go down the longer I own it.

Insurance and gas would add to that though. Around $170/mo for insurance (including house but the vehicle is the bulk of the cost) and maybe around $200/mo in gas give or take.

In ordinary times and ordinary circumstances, my meticulously updated spreadsheet repair/maintenance history proves to me what people had only argued to me before. It's much cheaper to go through the repair hurdles with an old car. You do, of course, lose some time and convenience. This all assumes that fuel prices are stable and we're not shifting into some new-technology imperative. And we know that these latter factors make us wonder a bit as to what we should do.

I have a friend who owns a 2001 Ford F150 pickup truck. He'd had engine work done a few years back. The other day, he told me he'd replaced the catalytic converter. I was too slow-witted at the time to recognize WHY he did it, but any fool would know -- HE COULDN'T PASS THE CA SMOG TEST! I KNOW that I told him last year to try using Cataclean according to the instructions, and perhaps run two or three bottles through the fuel system, engine and exhaust.

People don't listen, or they don't think chemicals work. But he's STILL paying less in a time-stream of money flows than someone buying a new car at the first sign of trouble with the old one.

Your observation of your fuel expense also points up another factor: the miles driven per unit of time. I can sustain a gasoline bill of $150 per month if I indeed only need to drive enough per month to use that much fuel in gallons. But the entire equation changes for some poor working stiff who has to drive to work every day.

 

[_Rick_]

Who cares about average, when this year, I will end up spending around 3 euro per kilometer on maintenance and repairs - ending up with a bill about 25%-30% of the remaining value of the car.
And one of the repair items isn't exactly going to increase value, as it's yet another non-road-legal modification - which is mostly fine, unless you end up in an accident and some insurance adjuster spots the difference.

 

[MtnMan]

Excluding insurance, I'm averaging less than $500 a year. This year will be $1800'ish, but had a number of things serviced this year, including brake fluid flush, bad ECT sensor replaced, coolant replaced, all the filters and fluids, carbon build cleaned from intake (diesel). But this was its 250,000-mile service.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Your observation of your fuel expense also points up another factor: the miles driven per unit of time. I can sustain a gasoline bill of $150 per month if I indeed only need to drive enough per month to use that much fuel in gallons. But the entire equation changes for some poor working stiff who has to drive to work every day.

Yeah I am fortunate that I work shifts so I'm not having to go to work every single day unlike someone working regular 5 days a week. Being 5-10 minutes from work helps a lot too. I really don't know how people in big cities stand having daily 45+ minute commutes. I would rather eat pinecones while they are on fire.