What's your cost per mile for a recently sold vehicle?

[SnowballCamper]

I thought it might be more useful for a thread on lifetime cost per mile for cars. I'm not a diligent record keeper, but for my recently sold 2017 chevy bolt it's pretty easy to figure it out.

Initial sale price minus tax rebate minus final sale price: 42,000-7,500-6,000=28,500
It gets about 3.7miles per kWh and my local electric rate is currently $0.10101 per kWh. All charging has been done at home except a handful of stops in the first couple months of ownership.
136,000/3.7miles=36,800kwh*$0.10101=$3,717.17

The only maintenance was one set of tires and a front hub replacement, $2,200 altogether.
The EV tax in WA is $225 per year, so 9*225=$2,025

Total cost of ownership per mile: (28500+3717+2200+2025)/136000=$0.268

A quarter per mile seems to be pretty good. I included the EV registration tax, but not the other registration fees/taxes because they generally apply to all vehicles. Of course they're different, but ignoring them makes it easier to compare models vs a comparison that is muddled by location.

 

[Time2]

I don't have cost per mile but I do have cost per year.
Years ago we bought a Lexus for trade in value from one of our customers, we paid $4,800 for it, 11 years later we sold it for $3,700. So $100 a year depreciation. My wife is a patient spider, she saw the car a year before and ask the customer when they are ready to sell it let us know, she did this with many of our customers. When it came time for the Lexus owner to get a new car, they offered $4,800 as trade in and he sold it to us for that price. I should say sold it to my wife, she, standing 4'7" and not embarrassed to ask for the moon, usually gets a great deal on what she buys. She also has many leads out, so she can say no when it is apt.
It was a nice car, even the buyer that came back a week later to get a get a key my son had that was out of town, was gushing about how great the car was.

 

[Surewhitey]

I calculated .21—.30 depending on the average cost of gas, mileage and current value & added in maintenance and registration costs. Worst case $.30.

I bought it 3 years old & I've had it for 11 years now.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

With all cost, i.e. insurance (FL), registration, maintenance, gas, initial purchase cost, my 2016 Subaru Outback w/72k miles = $0.83 per mile or $60,000. No hurry to unload it as my cost per mile should come down each future year. Less residual value

 

[ArmchairMillionaire]

I thought it might be more useful for a thread on lifetime cost per mile for cars. I'm not a diligent record keeper, but for my recently sold 2017 chevy bolt it's pretty easy to figure it out.

Haven't sold it yet, but I bought my 2010 GMC Canyon SLE 2wd regular-cab 5-speed pickup in December of 2015 for $8,000.00. It had 83,400 miles on it. Now it has a little over 163,000 miles on it. Over the 10 years I've owned it, I've probably spent around $2,500.00 in maintenance if you include rear brakes, fuel sending unit, clutch, tires, oil/filter changes, spark plugs, and an HVAC blower motor. I could have saved some $$ on the clutch and fuel sending unit, but I didn't feel like swapping those in the driveway so I paid labor on those.

Add in the cost of gas. 80,000 miles at an average of 22.5 mpg (25 in the summer and 20 in the winter) and a 10-year average gas cost of $2.75/gallon comes out to around $9,777.78. (more than the cost of the truck!)

Registration was $100/yr. for the past 7 years, and $84/yr. before that, so I'll just call it $1,000.00

$8,000 + $2,500 + $9,777.78 + $1,000 = $21,277.78 ÷ 80,000 miles =

Comes out to around 27¢ per mile over the past 10 years.

Our new Trax, on the other hand is at about $4.31 per mile.

We paid about $24K out the door when we bought it in 2024, but have only put 5,705 miles on it since we bought it. Spent about $475 on fuel so far using 33 mpg and $2.75/gallon.

But we plan on keeping it for a long time.

 

[marko]

Must be just me.

I buy the car.
I drive the car.
I enjoy the car.

I don't think about any other cost until I need another car.

 

[marko]

Forty years ago, my uncle, against my advice bought a new Jaguar. After three months he had so much trouble that he turned it in for a different make.

The new owner found him and said that he was only getting 11 miles per gallon and asked what uncle had been getting.

Uncle said he didn't know but had to fill it twice a week.
The guy said "but you didn't have any miles on it! You must have thought that you were getting lousy gas mileage!"

Uncle replied " I just thought it had a small tank!"

 

[Jerry1]

The last three vehicles I've sold ended up at $.45 to $.49 so let say just under 50 cents per mile. This does not include gas but does include all maintenance.

 

[joesxm3]

Rough guess,

My 2023 Tesla Model Y sold in 2025 with 13,000 miles = $1.50/mile.

My 2004 Acura TSX that I still own with 230,000 miles, factoring maintenance and insurance, about $0.46/mi.

 

[Pointby2]

It cost me roughly $1.32 per mile to drive my Focus RS the last ten years. It's high because I only drove it 31,000 miles. That's with $5.00 California gas, 15mpg, yearly dealer oil changes, a set of tires and depreciation (if I sold it). Includes insurance/maintenance/taxes.

Worth it.

 

[Texas Proud]

Heck, I do not know all the costs that I had with the DWs Pilot...

Gas, insurance, maintenance, broken things and tires... it was a lot..

Just on depreciation it was .25 a mile... at least .10 for maintenance including tires.. probably more..

 

[kgtest]

Oh noy. I think I figured this out once and it was like $1200/yr for my half ton pickup to keep it running over the now 11 year span.

That was annual license fees and all repair bills including 16 oil changes and filters , car washes, wiper blades, a radiator and condenser a temperature control sensor and an unneeded thermostat... oh and 1 set of tires so far.

Paid $32k for that truck. Financed 15k at like 2% apr. I paid it off a little early over like 3 years so no idea back of the envelope math says...

~$5,000 a year all in ACV of vehicle and repairs/maintenance plus a few goodies like tint, bed liner, tamanu , bug guards etc.

For me it was totally worth it. 55,000 for the 32,000 truck over 5yrs.

I used the truck and it netted me the cost of the vehicle back and then some. Fun family ski and camping trips, landed a dump trailer with the business I ran using the truck...

reinvested with my partner aka dad and bought a 2500hd. That was also paid for by the business which allowed us to keep all of our nest eggs untouched gaining in the market invested in high tech stocks.

It really accelerated my wealth at a key time in my life.

FIRE AT 50 here we go baby.

 

[Tom52]

Car insurance alone costs me more than $1.00 per mile driven per year on my classic car.

 

[ArmchairMillionaire]

Car insurance alone costs me more than $1.00 per mile driven per year on my classic car.

Sounds like you're not driving it enough.

 

[CO-guy]

Our last vehicle was a Subaru Forester.

We paid just over $18k new including a second set of wheels for winter tires and drove it 134k miles over more than a decade. During that time it was totaled twice. The first time, we bought back the vehicle and pocketed nearly $4k after repairs. The second time it was truly totaled, and insurance paid us $9500 along with another $1000 toward the purchase costs of a new vehicle. Other than 3-4 sets of tires, oil changes and gas, our only repair was the rear main seal shortly before the vehicle was completely totaled ($2200).

Net cost: $5700.
Cost per mile: $0.043 (not including gas and regular maintenance)

 

[lakerunner]

Out of curiousity, I decided to do a back of the napkin cost for our 2012 BMW SUV. We purchased this used for $16,5000, spent about $5,000 on maintenance and will be selling it soon for $4500. Cost, excluding due was $17,000. Drove it 91,000 miles, so 18.6 cents per mile. It is a diesel, so I would estimate another 10 cents a mile for fuel. Under 29 cents a miles for the past 5 years.

 

[Koolau]

^^^^^^^^

My similar calculation is for my 2000 Buick which now has 105K (driven 35K since 2012 when I bought it for $5K). $2K repairs and car now worth $2K. So $5000/35,000 miles =$0.143/mile (plus gas at 20 mpg and insurance). Tags nearly free.

 

[karen1972]

Not exact as we have 2 vehicles but from what I can tell cost of vehicle, plus maintenance/repair, plus gas was 29.6 cents a mile. Didn't include insurance as I dont' think you did.

Honda CRV bought new in 2010, sold in 2023 with roughly 165k miles on it

 

[GLM]

DH sold his 20 year old Pontiac vibe last fall. He keeps detailed records on all our cars so I asked him his cost per mile. It took him about 5 minutes to come up with 20.01 cents per mile. Depreciation , fuel (511 tanks of gas, Maintenance (Tires, batteries, filters) . this is without insurance and tax fees (That would take much more time) The car was a faithful one with 147K miles. The woman who bought it was older too and very happy to replace the vibe she had that was totaled in an accident.

Time to trade it in for his bucket list vehicle a Porsche Macan GTS. His current cost per mile is a bit higher $47/mile.

 

[Oakster]

I dont get into that much detail. On our 3rd vehicle, we usually target $0.10 a mile, strictly based on what you pay for it, minus what you sell it for. If it depreciated $10,000 dollars under your watch, you needed to get 100,000 miles out of it. Maintenance, fuel etc are all just part of the game. We have done well over the last 15 years or so with a 1995 Suburban, and 2003 Yukon, a 2007 Nissan Titan and now a 2017 Nissan Titan. We got our miles and moneys worth our of the first 3, we will see how the current one goes.

 

[gwill1010]

Sorry, no one can touch this.
In 2009 we bought my 17 yo son a 1986 Mazda protege with 135K miles for $1600. I was sure it would get wrecked in less than 6 months. Well, he drove it two years. When our 2nd son turned 17 he took over and drove it for 5 more years. Only major repair was a distributer($600). Less than $1000 in repairs over the 7 years.

A young man bumped into the back of it at about year 5. Broken tail light, a little dent on the trunk. $2500 estimate. I let the kid give me $350 so he could avoid an insurance claim.

We gave it to charity, that car was a mess.

 

[ArmchairMillionaire]

Sorry, no one can touch this.
In 2009 we bought my 17 yo son a 1986 Mazda protege with 135K miles for $1600. I was sure it would get wrecked in less than 6 months. Well, he drove it two years. When our 2nd son turned 17 he took over and drove it for 5 more years. Only major repair was a distributer($600). Less than $1000 in repairs over the 7 years.

A young man bumped into the back of it at about year 5. Broken tail light, a little dent on the trunk. $2500 estimate. I let the kid give me $350 so he could avoid an insurance claim.

We gave it to charity, that car was a mess.

In 1988, I bought a 1971 Olds Ninety-Eight Regency from my cousin for $10. Her landlord wanted it out of her driveway and it wouldn't move anymore for her.

I re-installed the 3 missing bolts from the transmission pan, (her ex-husband drove it down a rocky logging road and dented up the underside pretty badly one drunken evening) tightened the rest of them, added 6 quarts of Dexron ATF, and drove it for over a year - close to 10,000 miles before the transmission finally gave out one day.

I sold it for scrap metal for $50. (too bad - it had the Rocket 455 in it) so I more than made up for what I paid for the car + the transmission fluid.

10,000 miles for $10 comes out to about 1/10th of a cent per mile.

Of course, at 6 mpg, I probably used 1,666 gallons of fuel to travel those 10,000 miles. Gas was around $1/gal back then so if I include fuel, it's more like 16.7¢ per mile.