What percentage net income does your car expense eat up?

[CraigRT]

A good deal of my income goes towards my cars, but they're also a hobby, I'm not sure if that counts 😛

(In other words, I like spending money on my car) whereas some people just don't.

 

[exdeath]

As much of it as I can get away with.

 

[halik]

I buy used and DIY, very little total cost.

 

[RU482]

my stats, after next month (car is fully paid off)
Converting everything into a yearly cost:
- $520 per year insurance
- $225 per year for plates
- $1450 per year for gas
- $155 per year for repairs
- $50 per year maintenance
-----------------------------
$2400/yr based on last years expenses, 13k/yr commuting, $2.75 gas
considering I probably only drive the car 300 days a year tops, that's $8/day driven!
04 Chevy Impala

 

[vshah]

holy crap.


My Aveo has a 11 gallon tank (41 liters), which means, at $1.07/liter ($3.90/gallon) it costs around $43 to fill it up from empty.

At the moment I pay $120/week to pay off the car faster. Insurance is $107/mo. At this rate I'll be finished paying it off in a bit more than a year, but I'm not sure I want to keep it much longer.

Most of you seem to have your car expenses in check, single digit percentage of take home pay is really good.

heh, yeah if it wasn't for parking i'd be in single digits. i forgot maintenance costs but that's 30 bucks for an oil change every 3-5 months...

 

[amdhunter]

~Roughly 7%. Not including gas, but including insurance.

My rule of thumb is - I will NEVER purchase a car that I couldn't afford if I lost my job -- OR couldn't pay off within 1 year of purchase.

I *almost* made a mistake of breaking that rule if I would have bought the 135i. And after buying my RX-8, I couldn't be happier. I absolutely LOVE this car.

 

[SandEagle]

right now: 2 car payments, gas, insurance, etc: around 16-18% 🙁

i was paying $4300/year for insurance on my honda accord when i lived in Detroit :twisted: one of the worst areas with high risk of getting your car stolen.. oh well. put up with that for 3 years 🙁 drove 110 miles to and from work; glad thats over

 

[radioouman]

Awesome. This is exactly what I'm talking about. So when it's all said and done, it costs you just over $470/mo to drive.

Some good posts so far, keep em coming!

Skoorb, are you liking the Prius so far? And what of the Max??

I considered buying a 2000 Honda Insight last summer that had 99,000 miles. I plotted my Saturn against the Insight and found that while the Insight would be cheaper in fuel costs, it would still cost me more to drive just due to the initial cost than my Saturn for the first 15 years!!!

Now, I'm an automotive designer and I love cars so it is really tough for me to take my emotions out of the picture and make a purchase basely solely on cost. (On the other hand, I'm an engineer so it is easy to JUSTIFY a purchase based on cost... lol)

My Saturn is cheap to drive but I learned far more on my '93 and '94 Dodge Dakota and learning about the vehicle that you are driving is incredibly valuable.

 

[Koing]

Car puchased
£1200 insurance
£220 road tax
£65 for 220miles lol

I do the 2-3 track days a year with a troad trip. 1887miles to Barcelona cost £475 in petrol avg about 26.6mpg. It would have been cheaper to fly down 😛 but I wouldn't have seen the scenary or had fun in the car.

It's not bad but it does cost to drive a car. I could get a car that cost a lot less, half the price on insurance and road tax and at least 2-3x the mileage but it wouldn't give me a smile when I drove it and I've driven a sh!t car when I couldn't afford anything else. I'm happy to spend what I spend on the car. I draw the line at paying more then £1.5k on insurance though...f0ck that.

Koing

 

[yh125d]

$576/mo on payment+gas+ins.


My payment is only $237 of that

 

[DivideBYZero]

Fuck knows. I paid cash and get a car allowance and a fuel card from my employer, so it's as good as free. 😛

 

[StageLeft]

A good deal of my income goes towards my cars, but they're also a hobby, I'm not sure if that counts 😛

(In other words, I like spending money on my car) whereas some people just don't.

My standard don't mean much to anyone else but if a person spends a lot of money each month on a high status vehicle that they bought simply to look sharp I think they are a douche. I far more respect somebody spending as much on cars as a hobby. And I don't mean ricing to be laughed at by everyone else. I mean you're always in the garage making repairs that you incurred at track days or putting together a kit car.

My rule of thumb is - I will NEVER purchase a car that I couldn't afford if I lost my job

I think everyone should do this on basically everything if at all possible. I know some people are epically screwed if they lose work and within a month, it's wrong!

Fuck knows. I paid cash and get a car allowance and a fuel card from my employer, so it's as good as free.

Considering England today (?) is now paying the highest cost it ever has, I think it just broke 6 pounds a damn gallon, I bet that gas card is nice to have!

 

[ussfletcher]

Probably like 35%... I'm still in college.

 

[Merithynos]

Just popped onto Mint and checked my total Auto expenditures/Net income for May 2008 through March 2010...came out to about 31% of net income. A bit skewed by the lump-sum payoff I made end of last year when I was wiping out my last bit of non-mortgage debt.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Probably a lot more than most people (of cars of comparable initial cost, anyway), because I keep buying more shit. 😀

Same here.

My 97 Legacy wagon's driver's side headlight had a connection failure somewhere, so I re-wired both of the headlights with upgraded wiring to be triggered by relays with high output bulbs. When you factor in the cost of the relay kit that I bought since I didn't know what I was doing when I started, the nice hand tools I "had" to have and the extra wiring to make up for all my mistakes, it really adds up. $100 for the kit (with bulbs and everything), plus probably another $50-75 in misc expenses.
I could do it for a lot cheaper next time, considering I know what parts to buy & where and have good tools that will last through many wiring adventures.

Also in getting the wagon ready for my fiancee to daily drive, I wanted to pull my nice speakers out to replace the blown ones in my LGT. Getting a set of stock speakers out of another Legacy: $65

Line output converter to put speakers & amp in my LGT: $20-30

Oil change supplies + SeaFoam for the ol' wagon: $25

60K service on my LGT: $200 in parts, another $50 for tools I "need"

Let's not even talk about when my summer tires need replacing, hopefully they will last the next year.

Hello, my name is Tim, and I am a car addict. :twisted:

 

[sjwaste]

Damn close to nothing.

No car payment. I haven't driven it since December. Insurance is roughly $300/yr. It is a guzzler though, so if I drove it regularly, I'd probably be at $30 in gas per month (one tank or so).

My wife's car, on the other hand, we use regularly. She has about a 15 mile round trip for her commute, fills up once a week ($30). Insurance is about 500/yr. But the biggest expense is that she still likes to take it to the dealer (VW) for oil changes.

 

[thomsbrain]

I figure I spend roughly $7-8000 on the S2000 a year alone. That's counting payments, but not counting appreciation (yes, the car has been getting more valuable since I bought it). The Accord is paid off and goes through tires about 1/10 as fast but gets driven a lot more. Haven't sat down and calculated that one yet.

 

[TwinsenTacquito]

$12,000 car, 10 years ago. Sweet, I'm doing fine. Thanks, Chevy. :wub:

 

[zCypher]

$12,000 car, 10 years ago. Sweet, I'm doing fine. Thanks, Chevy. :wub:

What Chevy do you drive?

 

[Rezist]

For a 2006 civic Purchase price including taxes and intrest = 21,000
Insurance over 4 years I've had it ends in November 2011 = 4,800 (1,200 for plates and insurance a year)
Total km's 100,000 ~ 60,000 miles at an average 42 miles per gallon (imperial gallons) coverted back to litres at $1 is = $5,400
New tires at 80,000 km was = $1,200

Cost per km is 0.38

I'm missing oil filters, oil, air filters, and cabin filters, and soon to be spark plugs.

These total to less then 500 likely over the life time so far.

 

[TwinsenTacquito]

94 vette. I even make sure to actually get down and change the oil half as often as I'm supposed to.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

Car puchased
£1200 insurance
£220 road tax
£65 for 220miles lol

I do the 2-3 track days a year with a troad trip. 1887miles to Barcelona cost £475 in petrol avg about 26.6mpg. It would have been cheaper to fly down 😛 but I wouldn't have seen the scenary or had fun in the car.

It's not bad but it does cost to drive a car. I could get a car that cost a lot less, half the price on insurance and road tax and at least 2-3x the mileage but it wouldn't give me a smile when I drove it and I've driven a sh!t car when I couldn't afford anything else. I'm happy to spend what I spend on the car. I draw the line at paying more then £1.5k on insurance though...f0ck that.

Koing

Even with econoboxes I think you would struggle to get 53.2 mpg... and you would probably kill yourself, or at least want to...

 

[obamanation]

I considered buying a 2000 Honda Insight last summer that had 99,000 miles. I plotted my Saturn against the Insight and found that while the Insight would be cheaper in fuel costs, it would still cost me more to drive just due to the initial cost than my Saturn for the first 15 years!!!

Now, I'm an automotive designer and I love cars so it is really tough for me to take my emotions out of the picture and make a purchase basely solely on cost. (On the other hand, I'm an engineer so it is easy to JUSTIFY a purchase based on cost... lol)

My Saturn is cheap to drive but I learned far more on my '93 and '94 Dodge Dakota and learning about the vehicle that you are driving is incredibly valuable.

What mileage did you have calculated for the Insight and for your Saturn? If you drive the Insight correctly, you could see some substantial mileage improvements as it's an already very efficient car. The main reason why I wouldn't want an Insight is because it's an impractical two seater but if you don't have kids then that may not be an issue for you.