Ok, this is going to expose me as the true obsessive-compulsive numbers nut that I am, but I actually have kept track of every cent I've spent on my truck since I drove it off the Wagstaff Toyota lot back in 1995. This includes purchase price, taxes, yearly registration fees, property taxes, fuel, maintenance (including the occasional turn signal light bulb) and even cleaning. As of 31 December 2010 I had put 275,946 miles on it and had spent a total of $47,163.94 which works out to a touch over 17 cents per mile. Looking at just 2010 the cost was 25.25 cents per 2010 mile. Not a bad investment and, considering it's age, not a terribly expensive vehicle to drive to star parties. 'Course it's got a ways to go before catching up with my first Toyota that had over 400,000 on the odometer at trade in time. Clear skies, patrick On 09 Mar 2011, at 18:03, daniel turner wrote:
You need to put the cost of fuel into perspective.
When the gas prices spiced back in 2008 I took the price I paid for the vehicle and subtracted the current resale price and divided by the miles driven so far and came up with a cost of about 20 cents a mile.
I had paid cash so there was no interest, but I didn't consider tax, registration and mantenance costs, just the depreciation.
Currently gas is costing me about 20 cents a mile so the price of fuel is less than half the total cost of ownership.
Next time I will buy a used car to cut down on the depreciation cost. That's where the big cost is in owning a vehicle.
Or you could do like Patrick does. His truck was bought new when Reagan was still president. His depreciation cost per mile should be realy low.
DT