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Website for tracking car expenses

Hello,

I'm building a website to help track the costs of owning a vehicle. I know there are sites to keep track of petrol expenses but nothing that I know of that includes repair costs, insurance etc.

In the long term when I get it working with enough data it might be useful to help people compare the running costs of various cars with a view to buying etc.

The site is here:

http://www.pencepermile.org.uk/

I could use some feedback and help testing and suggestions so please feel free to visit and have a look at it. There is a forum linked to the site for comments if you don't want to clog up the MSE site.

I've only got the registration/login working at the moment so there's not a lot to see but I am aiming to get working on it over the next few weeks.

Thanks.
:A

Comments

  • movilogo
    movilogo Posts: 3,235 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    edited 9 March 2010 at 2:17PM
    I checked the site. I understand it is not yet finished, but could not see how one can compare running costs.

    If I register and submit my data, can I see expense for other users or only you can do this comparison?

    Also I don't think you can compare insurance as this is driver specific and not car specific.

    Fuel cost can be calculated based on manufactuers' economy figure (most people manage to achive 80-90% of quoted figures).

    For repair costs, companies like Warranty Direct etc. already publish the figure.

    Unless you get enough members to submit data, the comparison may appear very skewed.
    Happiness is buying an item and then not checking its price after a month to discover it was reduced further.
  • davidjwest
    davidjwest Posts: 756 Forumite
    movilogo wrote: »
    I checked the site. I understand it is not yet finished, but could not see how one can compare running costs.

    If I register and submit my data, can I see expense for other users or only you can do this comparison?

    Also I don't think you can compare insurance as this is driver specific and not car specific.

    Fuel cost can be calculated based on manufactuers' economy figure (most people manage to achive 80-90% of quoted figures).

    For repair costs, companies like Warranty Direct etc. already publish the figure.

    Unless you get enough members to submit data, the comparison may appear very skewed.

    At the moment all you can do is register and login, I've not written the rest of the site yet but welcome feedback at all stages so thanks for the comments.

    I'm not planning on doing any comparisons for insurance as you say it is driver specific mainly but I do think some of the other information might be interesting/useful.
    :A
  • AdrianHi
    AdrianHi Posts: 2,228 Forumite
    I thought about building a site like this myself but it never gets to the top of my to do list.
    I have a spreadsheet I use to do it. I find it interesting to compare the cost of the same car bought and sold at different ages and comparing finance methods like lease and PCP. My spreadsheets gets close to the figures What Car used to publish... which leads me to, they have been there and done that before but only following a car in it's first 36 months.

    Nice idea but you are way too premature in inviting feedback IMO, people will loose interest. Come back when you have beta 1 released we're not going to design it all for you ;)
  • davidjwest
    davidjwest Posts: 756 Forumite
    OK, I'll not post again until it's almost finished.

    I track my expenses on an iPhone app (Road Trip) but it doesn't cover everything and doesn't have many features.

    I wanted comments now as I don't want to finish coding it and then get feedback saying "you don't want to do it like that, you want to do it like this"

    ;)

    Thanks.
    :A
  • AdrianHi
    AdrianHi Posts: 2,228 Forumite
    I think it is a case of collecting all the expenses, espcially depreciation, and when it comes to servicing items taking account of the fact that some are mileage based, some are time passed and some are miles covered or time passed which ever is sooner.
    If you post back here when you have something more to show I'll take a look because I would find it usefull.
    Cost in terms of pence per mile and monthly would be good with the option of changing monthly mileage to see the effect across different cars would be very interesting. Sometimes that makes a younger car make more sense.
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