[Closed] What are the running costs of a car.

40 p per mile according to Tax office never worked it out but at 60 mpg cheaper than you 😉

The sporty car the mrs had for 2 years depreciated 8k in 16k miles. So that's 50p a mile by itself. Another £3500 for tax/insurance/fuel is another 21p, so... 71p a mile.

On the plus side nothing fell off it and I didn't have to hit it with a hammer to make it work 😉

Now you mention the tax office, that reminds me that some people get a mileage allowance for using their own car for work.
40p per mile sounds like I'd be on to a winner then.

Junkyard, 60mpg is just one number. I don't know about your car, but some people think it's normal to lose £5000 if they trade their car in after a year.
That's £100 a week. Even if it used no fuel at all, it would still cost more to run than my Land Rover .

Cost me £100 to get through the MOT last time, I think I might be able to sell it at a profit and it very economical being a 4L Honda civic 🙂

Have a look here

http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/running_costs/

you can get a lease on a brand new merc e class at £350/month. Lets say you do 20,000 miles, that'd be 21p/mile, fully serviced etc. I'd imagine diesel probably runs to 12p/mile - insurance is 3p/mile - around 36p/mile all in

The answer is always more than you think...

The lease will be mile capped at something like 10k per annum?

I am a bore when it comes to this

27p per mile fully loaded cost on my '05 Octavia diesel that I bought in December '08. Including all costs I have incurred but the depreciation is estimated obviously

Looking at those AA figures, the cheapest car at 10k pa is around 38p per mile. That's only counting depreciation as £1100, so I don't think there would be much to gain by buying old and second hand.
I reckon I'm doing better than that.

oh ok then tax £35 depreciation well it is probably worth about £1 k ish just a bit more than that???Depreciation not much but more than yours fuel no idea 5k at 60 mpg say £500? Insurance £300 £150 dpereciation @ 10% ish
Say 1 k which gives about 20 p per mile roughly @ 5 k
Good year re bills so probably fairer to say between 25-30 p If i did 10 k like you it would be 15-20 p per mile - odd it gets cheaper the more I do !!!

God, my car costs me loads.....

30k miles/yr. Assume £1.20/litre and I average 55mpg = around about £3k in fuel or £0.10/mile.

I paid £7.5k for it 4 years ago and it's now worth about £3k so that's £1125/yr or £0.0375/mile

Tax, MOT & Insurance costs ~£570/yr or £0.019/mile

Tyres and servicing (assuming nothing major goes pop) is about £500/yr or £0.0167/mile.

Hmmmm. Have I missed something there?? That only works out to £0.17/mile. The car wasn't new. Does that make a big difference? I guess the mileage coupled with the fuel economy perhaps makes it cheaper/mile.....??

I've had my car 4 1/2 years, done 90,000 miles in it (it had already done 10k when I bought it) and I make it about 28p/mile including depreciation, half of which is the fuel cost. Higher mileage spreads the depreciation, tax and servicing (depending on your schedule) over more miles. However unless you're billing someone for the mileage then the fewer miles the better in absolute terms. For reference the car's an old shape Civic Type-S, a warm hatch disguised as a van with windows...

I think the "correct" answer is that a 1.1 litre Fiesta costs 50p per mile to run and gets stuck in the slightest dusting of snow. That way the OP can feel smug about his amazing LPG landrover and we get less boring forum posts about it. 😉

Tax, MOT & Insurance costs ~£570/yr or £0.019/mile

Tyres and servicing (assuming nothing major goes pop) is about £500/yr or £0.0167/mile.

Hmmmm. Have I missed something there?? That only works out to £0.17/mile. The car wasn't new. Does that make a big difference? I guess the mileage coupled with the fuel economy perhaps makes it cheaper/mile.....??

The only thing I'd question is the servicing\tyres\repair costs. 30k per annum must be at least 2 oil services, and half a major service - so say £400 (? I've not run a modern car recently) - tyres are around £75 each - lets say they last 30k each on average (?) - that's another £150. warranty direct recon £280 for a 30k/year octavia diesel, lets say they're making a 10% markup - you should be budgeting £250/eyear for general repairs. MOT is about £50 quid.

thats £850

essentially though, your car is cheap per mile cos you do lots of them. I run 2 bangers, a mondeo estate (10k per year) and a mx5 (2k per year). Both cost about a grand a year to keep on the road (MOT, Tax, Insurance, Service). Obviously per mile the mondeo is loads cheaper

61 p per mile for an audi s3 that was bought new in 2007 and covered 30000 miles over three years.

Workings below:-

£10000 depreciation
£2280 tax/insurance/servicing

24mpg average over 30000 miles (assuming fuel has averaged £1.1 per litre)

To run my car, a Ford Mondeo bought s/h for £7800, it costs mr 27p a mile including the cost of replacing it. Thats everything apart from council charges or anything that is purly related to it being a taxi.

I reckon my car costs me about £5000 per annum (£3k in depreciation, £1200 in fuel, and about £800 for insurance, tax and servicing - the £800 is no doubt an underestimate, as is the fuel)

I do about 7500 miles per annum so that works out about 67 pence per mile.

Mine is an Audi A3 2.0T FSI Quattro. So the figures should be similar to julians. They seem comparable given he does a a few more miles than me.

About £1k pa, bit less if I remember to put antifreeze in it.

Last time I worked this out, my old car was about 11p a mile on standing costs and 11p a mile on fuel, doing 20000 miles or so. Now it'd be more like 12 or 13p each.

The key thing is having something that doesn't depreciate hugely - it's by far the biggest cost after fuel.

Also need to add in the up front finance costs of either paying for the car or lost interest (not so important these days) on the lump sum.

IME cars cost far more than people realise, and the real cost is only known when it is sold/scrapped.

My worst was a new Ducati at 278ppm, and my best s/h 405 mi16 at 27ppm.

Anything bought new really struggles to get anywhere near 40ppm, unless the pa miles are huge and/or its a cheap car.

Don't forget the costs to the environment and the costs to your health from driving everywhere 😈

So for 10k pa miles
Tax £200 = 2ppm
Insurance £300 = 3ppm
Servicing £100 = 1ppm
Tyres * 2 £200 = 2ppm
MOT plus £100 = 1ppm
Bits and pieces £200 = 2ppm
Fuel (30mpg at £1.25pl)= 19ppm

So 30ppm to start with..., before any depreciation.

only do 5k pa here and just bought a brand new car
Tax £free first year
Insurance £300
Servicing £0
Tyres £0
MOT £0
Bits and pieces £0
Fuel (60mpg at 1.25pl) £464

15ppm BUT I recon my total 5 year costs will be

Tax (free first year then £30pa) = £120
Insurance £1500
Servicing (2 full and 2 inters) = £600
Tyres (probably need fronts at 15-20k) = £100
MOT (year 4 and 5 it'll go up so) = £130
Fuel (60mpg at 1.25pl) = £2320
Cost of car £13k
hopefully still worth 5k after 5years with 25k on the clock.
That's £12770 in 5 years for 25000 miles so 51ppm
If I did 10k pa that comes down to about 36ppm

Cars both all paid for, both not great on fuel, both great fun, don't really care. Probably a fair bit but affordable.

IME,
£0.09p / mile depreciation (unless you buy French then its way more)
£0.09p/mile fuel - taking it easy ish.
£0.014/mile tyres (20k front, 30k rear)
£0.02/mile for insurance
£0.015 / mile for servicing
£0.005/mile road tax
[u][b]total £0.22 / mile (almost)[/b][/u]

based on:
30,000 miles a year in my last 2 diesel cars for the last 6 years. Mondeo TDCi and Octavia VRS
Lots and lots of motorway cruisy stuff and some back lane hurling. 😀

The company I work for pas £0.17. mile and £5200 / year taxed. I rekon I won't get rich but they will buy me a car that, when I've paid it off, will be worth a couple of grand.

I haven't factored in the amount of company car tax I don't pay or the tax back I receive either (relief between the 17p and 45p or 20p depending on mileage) but I get about £800 PA back off the taxman as well. 😀

50p a mile was the average according to the RAC, I think.

More miles makes the fixed costs cheaper per mile. Fewer miles makes then more.

We barely use our car, so it costs us a bloody fortune per mile.

Somehow, I'm not surprised by the fact that the most expensive vehicle by far is the motorbike. 😐

I always thought that if I didn't have a Land Rover, or wanted a second vehicle, I would get a Morris Minor van, with all the brake, suspension and engine upgrades that are widely available.
Free tax, economical on fuel, cheap & easy to repair and no depreciation. Best of both worlds. 8)

I was wondering how much extra I would need to pay to replace my car with a 4x4...

Corsa-b, cost £1.5k and I plan to run it to its dead with a milage of 20k per year.

Petrol, I get just over 450miles out of 45 litres, so 10 miles a litre or 12p per mile at current prices.

Car was bought at £1500 and I have done 50k miles (its got about 90k on it) so if it dies tomorrow the depreciation is £0.03 per mile. Ideally I hope to get another 50k out of it at least.

Repairs, it gets about £300 of work a year on average, including tyres. I do the servicing myself and thats covered in the £300 so thats £0.015 per mile.

Insurance is about £330 a year - £0.0165 per mile.

Road tax is £125 - £0.00625 per mile.

MOT is £35 - £0.00175 per mile.

Addon an extra £100 for screenwash, blubs, air freshners, etc etc - £0.005 per mile.

My cost per mile is: £0.1945. Or 20p.

Interestingly it looks like my 1 litre 2000 plate corsa-b has a similar cost per mile as Graham works out for his Landy... Only 10p difference, which at 20,000 miles work out to be £2000 per year. Wow thats a big difference actually - I cant afford a 4x4!

(edit to fix bad maths).

A bit more maths tells me that its costing me £4000 a year to run my car, about 20% of my wages.

3/4 of my mileage is done getting to work and back and its costing me £12 a day to commute (60 miles a day). A staggering £60 a week!

For every 10p that petrol goes up I end up spending a penny more per mile. Or £3 per week.

**** this no more maths for me today, thats depressing.

A bit more maths tells me that its costing me £4000 a year to run my car, about 20% of my wages.

Just think: every Friday you're at work, you're only there to pay for your car.

Depressing, hey?

I actually made a spreadsheet before I bought my last car 😳 , included everything, fuel, insurance, tax, MOT's etc, even guesses for repairs (cost of a service, new exhaust and some tyres used as the benchmark)

Options were Renault Espace, Volvo V70 or a Landy 110 V8, with LPG conversion. All oldish and around £3-4k.
Oddly enough the Landy worked out cheapest. Depreciation is by far the biggest hit. Wimped out of actually buying one though 🙁

And the GF's new Aygo (60mpg and group 1 insurance, brand new so £0 for repairs as all warrenty jobs) was by far the most expensive!

Tax £250
Insurance £350
Servicing £300
Tyres annual cost £200 (a full set costs £600 and lasts about 30k)
MOT £50
Fuel (28mpg at 1.25pl) = £2000
Depreciation £2000 (didn't cost much)

So cost for 10k miles per annum = 51p/mile

Not bad for a 2.7 tonne Land Rover. A lot cheaper than running a newer car with a bigger depreciation charge

[i]Somehow, I'm not surprised by the fact that the most expensive vehicle by far is the motorbike.[/i]

Presumably only because he didn't use it much, or wrote it off on the third ride or something. Try working out the cost per mile of a new MTB after the first weekend 🙂

miketually - Member

"A bit more maths tells me that its costing me £4000 a year to run my car, about 20% of my wages."

Just think: every Friday you're at work, you're only there to pay for your car.

Depressing, hey?

And here lies the lunacy of commuting by car. There are lots of people in this sort of situation. Add to the cost the time of commuting - see how much that brings your hourly rate down.

Its a crazy mixed up world where this is a lifestyle choice.

Big motorbikes can be very expensive to run. 10 000 miles will be best part of £500 in tyres for a start. Chains another hundred or two. Servicings more frequent as well. Insurance is expensive as is riding kit and repairs

And here lies the lunacy of commuting by car. There are lots of people in this sort of situation. Add to the cost the time of commuting - see how much that brings your hourly rate down.

Its a crazy mixed up world where this is a lifestyle choice.

That is where my company car actually pays of. Costs me £120 a month in tax on car and fuel. I have done 44k miles this year so that is 3666 miles per month which comes in at a cost to me of 3p per mile! Obviously the company pay a lot more for it than that but with my wife family living in Yorkshire and my family in Kent and us living in Bedfordshire we easily spend 2 fuel tanks worth of petrol on personal mileage so it saves us money.

The time factor is another issue completley. My 70 mile one hour commute takes the same amount of time as my wifes 12 mile commute so living close to work doesnt always save you time!

Yeah, people tend to assume that if a small car is cheaper to run then a big car, then a motorbike must be even cheaper.
It doesn't work quite like that though. It might for scooters, but not when you take the fuel and tyre consumption of sports bikes in to account.

It'd be interesting to know if anyone's worked out the figures for a bicycle.
People don't tend to trade a bike in for a newer one every couple of years, like they do with cars, so I don't know how you'd factor in depreciation.

it would cost me £50p more per day to use public transport than it does the car, buying a season ticket and getting the bus to and from the station. barmy

My previous cheapy commuter decathlon road bike that i used every day for a few years worked out about 7p a mile IIRC.

And here lies the lunacy of commuting by car. There are lots of people in this sort of situation. Add to the cost the time of commuting - see how much that brings your hourly rate down.

Its a crazy mixed up world where this is a lifestyle choice.

Yeah, I cycled to work for 5 years (10 miles each way) and really miss it after changing job, however I dont miss the stress of my old job at all!

I work in IT - there isnt much work about and I badly needed to leave my last job before the stress was too much and I had some sort of break down or lost my wife.

I had to take a job thats 30 miles away from my house, but its a very good job. OK pay, superb people to work with (both the guys in IT and the end users) and the job is interesting and stress free. For that I can compromise and spend some more time in the car.

I dont think I have been happier for a long time. If ever. But I do spend a lot of time in the car!

I commute daily by bike.
Cost me £400 initial outlay in 2008 (for a perfectly functioning, working bike, so will ignore the pointless extras I've spent on it).
£57 for 2 new pairs of tyres (road and CX for this snow!).
In [b]true[/b] repair/running costs, I reckon about £30 a year (oil, grease, pads). Yet to have a big drivechain replace.

However, the parking at work costs £35 per month, so after about 15 months the bike is quids in.

Don't know what that is PPM (4 miles each way minimum), but must be heading towards the zero point (given parking is £35 a month and would HAVE to be included in alternative vehicles)

DrP

Car cost 9000 will keep 5 years and assume worth 1k on resale so 8k depreciation or £1600 year
20k mile a year at 10p a mile £2000 year fuel ( jeez thats depressing)
mot £100 year
service and tyres £300 year
Insurance £350 year
so 4300 year 23p/mile
of which my work car allowance covers, but only just....

i also have a land rover but dont even want to think about costs for that

£0.09p / mile depreciation (unless you buy French then its way more)

My first car
Cost £200
MOT £35
New tyre £40
Tax £185
Fuel at 10p/mile £1,200
Died 12k/8months miles later, got £60 scrap for it, plus tax refund.
Insurance £620 (I was 23 with no NCD, 3 points and a 1.6 litre engine)

Total cost = 18p/mile, but a third of that is insurance.

Not worked out current car, 28mpg not good!

New running shoes £50, shop keeper siad they're good for 500 miles = 10p/mile for running!

looking at the missus car, 2005 diesel panda. bought for 4k in 2007 and looking at the cheapest on autotrader its still worth 3250.
35k miles at 62mpg.
3 mots at 40.
3 services at 30 for parts.
Discs and pads at 92.
4 tyres at 52 each.
3 tax at 35
3 insurance at 200

so 13.6p a mile. this is about as cheap as running a car can get although i have used genuine fiat parts and continental tyres so a bit could have been saved there.

The other cars and motorbikes cost far more and i dont want to think about it!

And here lies the lunacy of commuting by car. There are lots of people in this sort of situation. Add to the cost the time of commuting - see how much that brings your hourly rate down.

I was wondering when TJ was going to show up 🙂

It's only lunacy when you get a second car purely for commuting - most of us have a car anyway, if you use it for commuting too it's actually making the most of your investment. Given you'll be spending time getting to work whatever means of transport you choose (ignoring working from home) adding the time as a cost seems a little unfair.

[i]Somehow, I'm not surprised by the fact that the most expensive vehicle by far is the motorbike.

Presumably only because he didn't use it much, or wrote it off on the third ride or something
[/i]

No, it was a divorce present to myself (Monster) - replaced with a proper bike after 6 months.