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If you factor in 1 major drivetrain replacement, it's probably not too far off. Before I owned it my truck got a new motor installed at the dealership: $4200
But that is not an annual occurrence, (I hope). I've owned my Honda CR-V for ten years, and it's only had two repair jobs, total. (Bad air conditioner, twice repaired)
But that is not an annual occurrence, (I hope). I've owned my Honda CR-V for ten years, and it's only had two repair jobs, total. (Bad air conditioner, twice repaired)
No, of course not, but if you spread out this cost for the life of the vehicle (5 years, in my example) that's over $800/year. It adds up. One time costs (capital costs, if you will) are still costs. I don't think the $8000 is simply for operating expenses (not should it be).
CRV is a great vehicle. It's what replaced my truck in the seller's garage.
No, of course not, but if you spread out this cost for the life of the vehicle (5 years, in my example) that's over $800/year. It adds up. One time costs (capital costs, if you will) are still costs. I don't think the $8000 is simply for operating expenses (not should it be).
CRV is a great vehicle. It's what replaced my truck in the seller's garage.
$800 is still 1/3 of what the BLS is claiming people spend on that category.
That's what the thread is supposed to be about, the cost of owning ONE car. However, the link talks about car-related expenses PER HOUSEHOLD. Now I did look at the stats for car ownership per household, and it's been about 1.78 or thereabouts since 1972. So if it's $8000 for all cars in the household, that works out to about $4500/car. That's still high, IMO, but makes a lot more sense than $8000/car, which is what the OP is claiming. See below:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Geologic
The Real Cost of Owning a car- More data here, as first posted in the Greenville section:
Okay.
I admit that I do not recall EXACTLY where that figure came from, but I believe that the figure was USD 8,000-9,000 per annum was the "average fully-loaded cost" of running a car for the average American, as reported on a recent Strong Towns.org podcast.
Many people do not fully-load the costs of car-owning. And even worse, some of the costs of car owning are passed on to others, through the way we finance our highways - They are subsidized by the Federal government, so non-driver are now paying for some of the costs of car owning. I wonder how much longer that cross-subsidy will continue?
Let me try to confirm my figure, by pulling some figures off the web...
This is a little out-of-date, by the 2006 figure from the US government was a little bit over $8,000 per annum:
"Government Estimates
According to Consumer Expenditures in 2006, released in February of 2008 by the U.S. Department of Labor's U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average vehicle costs $8,003 per year to own and operate. The breakdown of the figure comes to $3,421 for purchasing the vehicle, $2,227 in gasoline and motor oil expenses, and $2,355 in other vehicle-related costs."
Obviously, the higher income people have, the more they are willing to spend on their cars. I reckon that gasoline prices today are near where they were (on average) during 2006, and maybe a bit lower than they were in 2007-8, when oil prices peaked. People are driving less, but other costs like new car purchase prices, and insurance costs may be higher today.
Maybe someone who is better at doing web research that I can get a more up-to-date figure.
As for the Cross-subsidies, that non-drivers (like me) make to the Car-dependent, Chuck Marohn talks about this in his latest Strong Towns podcast:
Basically, highways are VERY expensive to maintain, and most states are not getting anything like enough money to cover the costs from gasoline taxes. (For instance, North Carolina will need an extra $22 Billion over the next 30 years to fund its highway-related costs*, says Marohn.) So the shortfalls from gasoline tax are now getting funded through new bond issues, and through the state sales tax. If ALL of the costs of maintaining the highways were put into gasoline taxes, then the price of gasoline would go up by $2-3 per gallon.
This is tolerated politically because so many people drive, and the car-dependent are able to use the political process down the throats of the Carfree - although this is patently unfair. The problem now is that highway maintenance costs are rising much faster than revenues from the gasoline tax, and so it is getting harder and harder to fund these costs through cross subsidies.
Marohn quotes those who are talking openly about abandoning some old highways, raising gasoline taxes, and charging drivers for driving on a per mile. However you look at the real data, it should be crystal clear that the costs of driving are likely to rise and rise. I want to avoid that cash drain, if I can, by living carfree. It makes logical sense in my view of the world - I hate to be a sitting duck for future tax increases.
That's what the thread is supposed to be about, the cost of owning ONE car. However, the link talks about car-related expenses PER HOUSEHOLD. Now I did look at the stats for car ownership per household, and it's been about 1.78 or thereabouts since 1972. So if it's $8000 for all cars in the household, that works out to about $4500/car. That's still high, IMO, but makes a lot more sense than $8000/car, which is what the OP is claiming. See below:
The OP's numbers from his included link are car-related expenses per household, I said that multiple times including on the first page:
Quote:
Originally Posted by nei
From's the OP's link the sentence before the table:
An overview of vehicle expenses based on household income is provided in figure 1 below.
Is this per vehicle or vehicle expenses per household? The numbers for the lower incomes of the table sound reasonable, but the highest 20% the purchase costs come out to $620 / month. It's hard to figure out down payments but it appears you can lease a BMW for less than that.
The linked numbers from nybbler's post are per household as well. The OP claimed his numbers were per vehicle but they never were, and would be impossibly high as shown by my BMW example. Your long quote of the OP is just wrong.
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