What a Deal !!! Auto Expenses

[11522914]

Hello everybody,

Time to renew my vehicle registration and pay property tax. The county appraised my vehicle and it got me thinking, how much have I paid in total costs. Here are the facts.

Purchased 2004 Toyota Avalon XLS in excellent condition (1 owner, no accidents) with all the options available in August 2014 with 139,000 miles.

Paid $6,769 out the door. Here we are 72 months later. Now have 182,000 miles. County states appraised value is $3,610. Doing some quick research shows I should be able to get that value easily if I sold today.

Since I track everything in Quicken since 1994 I am able to determine exactly how much I have spent in service and parts. This does not include fuel, inspections, insurance or property tax over the years. Of course insurance and property tax are much lower because of a used car.

Here are the official numbers.

Car purchase $6,769
Car value $3,610

Depreciation costs $3,159
Service & parts total $1,622

Total costs $4,781 over 72 months. Monthly costs $66.40. What a deal !!!

I still love this car. Rides just as well as the first day I bought it. Absolutely no issues. This is just one reason how I was able to retire at 58 1/2.

Anybody want to share their car expense stories?

 

[HF63]

You getting close to replacing the timing belt. Get a nice kit w/ waster pump and consider replacing the thermostat, temp sensor ,serpentine belt and tensioner.


Does if you are looking at keeping the car for few more years.

 

[Scrapr]

I had a Volvo XC90 that i put a boat load of miles on. 320k or something crazy in 11 years. Bought it for $40k. All in costs of repairs (not fuel though) was about $20k. This was about 3 timing belts, tires, a few brake jobs, a couple batteries, a fuel tank cleaning (don't ask) and oil changes every 7-8k miles. I loved that SUV. It carried a ton of stuff, Christmas trees, tailgate gear. All kinda stuff. Never let me down

a Penske rep came to our office and was talking about fleet maintenance for our trucks. He said their rule of thumb was to sell when when cost of repair reached 50% of sales price. Which i was pretty close on the Volvo

 

[SecondCor521]

I'm not sure how you figure that ignoring fuel, inspections, property tax, and insurance means you're including the "total costs"

Anyway, I have a 1993 Lexus GS300, and over the past 72 months I've spent $16,185.01 on it:

Fuel $7120.57
Insurance $1421.90
Maintenance $3442.04
Misc $603.51
Repair $3596.99

Monthly that's $224.79.

$1215.80 of the "Repair" category was for a new front bumper, which was partly my fault and partly the fault of a poorly maintained parking lot.

Retired a few months before my 47th birthday.