Is anyone else sad enough to work out this kind of thing?

Pick up our new (used) car on Wednesday, so I roughly calculated the cost of ownership of our outgoing VW Golf. Not including insurance, I reckon it cost us 36 pence/mile in the 40,000 miles and 4.5 years we owned it. I factored in:

– Depreciation
– Servicing & Repairs (inc. Tyres, MOT’s etc.)
– Fuel
– VED

No idea if this is good or not, but it comes in at less than the 42 pence/mile work pays for mileage, so I guess it’s not too bad..

Not necessarily “working it out” but I have an app to keep track of MPG, mostly. It also has bits for servicing, repairs, etc. so it’s giving me a rough idea of what it’s costing me.

Last time I worked it out (several years ago) it was somewhere near 19p/mile.
But that’s because I bought a second hand car, have kept it for years and do lots of miles, so all of the items that are divided by ‘per mile’ get divided by a large number and depreciation is low (I paid £7500 and have kept it for 8.5yrs so far).

Just do what most people insist on (including one prominent poster on here 🙂 ) and ignore everything other than the fuel, car tax and servicing because, well, I’d always have the car anyway so depreciation is a given…

£14k in four (and a half) years? Crikey cars are expensive bastards.

Why not insurance? It’s a cost.

Also did you include any interest paid?

I’ve done it for years; ours have varied between 27.13ppm and 50.59ppm over a minimum of 4k and maximum of 107k.

And split between ownership costs and running costs.

Just do what most people insist on (including one prominent poster on here ) and ignore everything other than the fuel, car tax and servicing because, well, I’d always have the car anyway so depreciation is a given…

But depreciation is directly linked to how much you paid, how many miles and how long you keep it?

I am also wondering why you haven’t included insurance as that seems to be a major cost in owning a car and one you have to pay.

So far to date my car works out at 26.12 p/m

I have include depreciation, fuel, tyres, servicing, VED, insurance, MOT’s

2ltr TD Mazda 6 Estate bought when it was 18 months old had it for 7 years now, I’m sure I could have done it cheaper but so far I’m happy enough with the running costs

Why miss out insurance ?

And did you pay for a breakdown service ?

If you only get 42p per mile you can claim the other 3p from HMRC to make it up to their 45p limit.

Around 35p per mile for me on a brand new car.

MoreCashThanDash – Member
If you only get 42p per mile you can claim the other 3p from HMRC to make it up to their 45p limit.

Does anyone know how you go about claiming for the difference please? How far back can you go? My OH gets 35p per mile and has done $h!t loads of miles over the last few years. Not as much now, she gets expenses paid for about 45 miles per week currently.

I just googled “mileage tax relief” and it was the first proper Gov.UK link.

Lots of shady sites come up that offer to do it for you.

I’ve just done this after owning a s/h car for 12 years and then disposing of it. IIRC it was about 40p/mile, insurance, tax, fuel wasn’t too bad, servicing (and depreciation) was a bit hefty. I didn’t break it down by fixed and variable costs though, that might have been useful – is servicing a variable cost, I guess it is and isn’t..

Found my started post from last year – P 663 HKD cost me around 43p / mile for ownership for the 12 years we had it.

Iirc the last time i did the maths my wagon cost 24 pence a mile all inclusive if i were to scrap it tomorrow for 100 quid.