How much does your car really cost you?

bobbadog

Ours costs about £530 in insurance (gone up when we moved my OH to London) and say, £30 a month in petrol. Saves us £35 of trainfares every time we head 'home' though, about once every 6 weeks, so think it's worth it

franny

I recently got rid of my car as I had moved to London and it would have cost £76 pa to just park outside my front door. I am positive that I wouldn't have used it in London however and it was a bit of a no-brainer really.

However tubes are costing me £90 pcm and, cheaper than congestion charge I know but I don't live in the zone and could drive to just outside it and get a cheaper tube or bus for £1.50 to work.

Ah well, done now.

DontDoDebtKids

I'd love one of those G-Wiz cars...

https://www.goingreen.co.uk

But I don't live/work in london so I'd have to get my work to install a charging point in the car park or something - somehow I suspect that it's too much to get them to actually do that!

DDDK

poppy_f1

my car costs me
33 per month on insurance/breakdown cover plus my mum is also on the insurance
road tax of 130
mot/service say 100
and 50 for the other service over

now luckily i have a mechanic who only charges me cost price for parts and very little for labour
eg last week someone stole both my wing mirrors - mirrors cost 18 quid each inc vat also he replaced one wiper blade at a cost of a fiver and was gonna charge me 45 quid in total - gave him 50 since he done it at short notice

also i paid for the car outright at the time also bought thru my mechanic its a w reg corsa and i paid 1500 for it nearly 2 years ago and never had a major problem with it - my car before that was a astra which i also got from him and sold on thru him which never gave me many problems (until i had decided to get a newer car anyway)

i've done the whole buying a fancy car on credit and really screwed myself over with it and i dont think i would do it again unless it was really my only option

JohnInDebt

£2,880 Petrol
£100 MOT
£200 Car Servicing
£800 Repairs (Mainly Tyres!!!)
£120 Breakdown (AA)
£350 Car Insurance
£175 Car Tax

£4,625 Total

I claim mileage allowance for work which works out approx. £4,500 per year so it pretty much covers all the running costs of my car.

Storm

I bought my car for cash £1K last summer (pre-LBM, obviously!) and it's 9 years old this month (happy birthday little car!)

Cos I've just passed my test my insurance was high - £460
Breakdown cover - £44
Diesel - £30 a month (ave) so £360 a year
Tax - don't know cos haven't had renewal through yet - £120?
MOT - awkward one I know, going to estimate £200 from what it was last August just before I bought the car + fan belt & oil I got done recently

TOTAL: £1184 a year

I do quite a lot of business miles though, averaging about 95 a month since I past my test in September. I get paid 35p a mile for these from work, and can claim a further 5p a mile back from the inland revenue, so over a whole year I'll get about £456 back.

REAL COST: £728 per annum = £60.66 a month.

Now I could probably get around for less than that a month, but having the car has enabled me to take overtime in areas that I wouldn't have been able to go to on public transport easily or safely, and my overtime is at £19 an hour... the extra I've done so far, and what is planned amounts to 56 hours, which is £1064 (and that's only 8 months!). I know after being taxed it's not so much, but my little car is actually at least breaking even, if not making me money!

brazilianwax

Ummmmm - we have 2 cars that we only use at weekends.

For my baby, and based on 1st year of owning her, the figs are:

Insurance £900
Servicing/tax £1000
Repairs £zero
Bits & bobs £500
Petrol £3000
Payments £1000
Depreciation £10000-12000 :eek:


And worth every single penny.

Other car is older so not much depreciation, but still expensive!

brazilianwax

And not bought new tyres yet (at £600-800 per set!!!) :eek:

helping_hubby

Sloppy_Saver wrote:

Have you looked into rail cards and such to try and lower your travel costs? I travelled from the centre of London to my house in a village north of Manchester and it cost me £29.90 (£4 for zone 1 tube ticket to Euston, £24 for train to Manchester Piccadilly, 70p for tram ticket to Victoria and 1.20 for train to my village). Was amazed.

We have onyl one car and sometimes it's a real pain if my OH is using it and I need it, but generally it sits idle on the driveway quietly depreciating. Wish we could get rid of it, but it is a necessary evil I guess.

I did email the rail company for a quote for weekly/6 monthly tickets, but they said I had to phone. I will phone when/if it's confirmed we are moving office.

I'm personally not in debt, so spending the extra for convenience doesn't bother me. However, it'd be nice to have the threat of just one car costing lots in repairs instead of 2 cars so I can help husband out more.

My husband has downgraded his car from insurance group 13 to 5. It's also diesel so is supposedly cheaper to run. Hopefully he'll save £300 a year on car insurance alone.

The other thing that puts me off from selling 1 car, is I mystery shop and so without a car I don't think it'd be worth doing as a lot of jobs don't get travel expenses paid for. My husband also works weekends, so I wouldn't even have the car then.

I like the idea of _having_ to walk though, it'll do me good and keep me a bit fitter.

immoral_angeluk

Insurance - £33.78 a month for myself and hubby comprehensive. £405.36 p/a
MOT - No idea as haven't had the car a year yet... will say about £120p/a just in case but not expecting it to be that much.
Maintenance - Annual Service £150(estimate)
Loan Interest - No idea but our repayments are £160.50 a month so £1926 p/a:eek:
Tax - £68.75 for 6 months £137.50 p/a
Depreciation. - No idea but we bought it in september last year for £4995 and it's 3 yrs old so based on the 10% a year thing I'd say £499.50 p/a depreciation.

So based on that before we've even driven the car it's costing us £3238.36!!!!! :eek: :eek: :eek:
Add to that petrol of roughly £30 a month it all comes to nearly £3600 a year...
Jesus.....