Is it possible for me to work out how much petrol i would use driving for 2 hours on

C_Ronaldo

Its a long shot but id like to know if i can find out how much money i would spend on petrol, reason im asking is that im applying for a job buts its 2 hours away(mostly motorway driving) and as its 2 hours away i thought would paying for a hotel room (4 nights) be cheaper than buying petrol, would i need to know the mpg for my car

Hintza

How many miles? What car and engine?

AdrianHi

I think you really need to be thinking about the total cost of doing those miles.
My commute to work on the car doing 14,000 miles in total a year works out at not much less than £20 for the round trip. About £5 or £6 of this is fuel, the rest is mostly depreciation but also servicing and consumables such as tyres.
When you are racking up big miles you really notice the cost of servicing. I spent £1200 in maintenance and MOT on a 7 year old car in one year when I had a long commute, the services come up really quickly when your doing big miles.

As a rough guestimate I'd say a £40 to £50 hotel room will be cheaper, my commute is only half an hour.
Are you sure a job closer to home is not better for you?

If you really want to work this out you can try using what cars pence per mile figures which are pretty good but only really apply to the first 36 months and 36,000 miles. Not so good if you do more miles than this.

richardp_3

Assuming the following:
MPG = 35
Journey = 100 miles each way
Petrol price = 115.9p

I reckon you'll be spending about £30 per day on fuel alone (worked out here: www.saveyourcash.co.uk/fuel/journeycost.aspx).
But, as AdrianHi says - it is the total cost per mile that might affect your decision. You can get an idea of how much that might be here: www.saveyourcash.co.uk/fuel/totalcost.aspx

wyze

A handy link RichardP but if you don't know your current MPG, and lets face it this varies, theres a better fuel calculator here that will work out your MPG as well as your journey cost - it even remembers your last 4 results.

hewhoisnotintheknow

its so easy to work out, fill car up (say to the point the pump clicks) do the drive then fill it up again. The cost of fuel used is the cost!

bootman

My husbands office is 168 miles from home. If you are having to run your own car and pay for hotels then I would say forget it!

His travel and hotels are covered by work, but if we had to pay for a £60 a night hotel and 1 tank of fuel to get there and back costing £70 all his pay would be spent on travel along.

Cardelia

AdrianHi wrote: »

I think you really need to be thinking about the total cost of doing those miles.
My commute to work on the car doing 14,000 miles in total a year works out at not much less than £20 for the round trip. About £5 or £6 of this is fuel, the rest is mostly depreciation but also servicing and consumables such as tyres.
When you are racking up big miles you really notice the cost of servicing. I spent £1200 in maintenance and MOT on a 7 year old car in one year when I had a long commute, the services come up really quickly when your doing big miles.

Surely this depends on the situation of the OP? For example, if he already owns the car he plans to commute in, then depreciation will be occurring irrespective of whether he commutes or stays in a hotel room. Likewise insurance, tax and servicing. So for calculating the journey cost, these things should not be taken into account because the OP is already paying them irrespective of whether or not he commutes.

Anyway, even if you disagree, it looks like the OP faces a choice between 2 car journeys (Monday morning and Friday evening) plus 4 nights hotel or just 10 car journeys. In which case it's a fairly straightforward mpg calculation because when you look at the difference between the two options, the depreciation and tax etc. will pretty much cancel each other out.

BillScarab

Depreciation will be more if he drives every day as the car will have far more miles on it and be worth far less. Also Servicing costs will be higher as it will need to be serviced more frequently. They will also spend more on consumables such as tyres, exhausts, wiper blades etc. So basically it isn't just the fuel cost.

Personally I couldn't face spending 4 hours a day commuting and I wouldn't like to spend 4 nights a week in a hotel, it would have to be a very well paid job for me to do it.

Is any sort of public transport an option?

Hintza

I agree with Bill both options are equally unappealing.

Unlees job is good stepping stone in career ladder I wouldn't be keen on either. If job was a must I would think of moving closer.

hewhoisnotintheknow

depriciation is a funny thing, you could never use a car and loose x, you could use it all day every day and loose 2x.

2x im my eyes is better value after car tax insurance mot etc