Thanks for helping me realize I've got 6 grand into my miata on top of the 5k buy in, and it's still not turbo or gofast swapped. 8 thousand miles so far. I'm gonna go destroy tires in anger now.
It almost makes my Sonoma sound economical in comparison. 5k buy in, 6k repairs, 2400 insurance, 200/week in gas for 2 years, so 10k there? 80,000 miles 23000 dollars... Not terrible in comparison.
It's not something I'm real eager to track. My commute is less than 5 miles each way so I get bad mileage no matter what I drive. But the distance is so short the out-of-pocket is about the same wether I drive the Miata or the Suburban.
I'd hazard a guess that my insurance cost is too high because of an accident two years ago for me and last year for TM. Fuel cost is high per mile driven because of the short, stoplight ridden commutes for both of us. Repairs are too high because of elderly iron and Germanness.
Better off not knowing.
In reply to Brokeback:
Yes... must be an engineer thing... with a small dose of wannabe accountant. I calculate two cost-per mile numbers. Fuel only and total. It pulls numbers out of my MPG calculation spread sheet tabs as well as my general budgeting spread sheet tabs (which go back to when I started the file in 2001) where I break out money spent on each car.
'03 VW Jetta TDI wagon. Purchased new. Currently about 329K miles.
Fuel only: $.062/mile. Total: $.199/mile.
Total fuel cost since new: $20,335.
Total money spent since new (fuel, purchase, insurance, maintenance): $65,324
'08 Dodge Grand Caravan. Purchased used at the end of 2013. Currently about 164K miles.
Fuel only: $.11/mile. Total cost per mile: $.267/mile (which should start going down as I just paid it off).
Total fuel cost: $9426
Total cost: $22,881
I generally keep records for all of my cars since the speadsheet I use is easy to set up, although I didn't set one up for the Mini thinking the odometer wasn't accurate enough, which I regret. The fuel cost/mile for the classics is fairly normal. Since they aren't driven as much, the total cost tends to be high: well over $1. The worst of my "non-classic drivers" was my Dodge Cummins, which was nearly $1/mile - even with the selling money factored in.
RevRico wrote: Thanks for helping me realize I've got 6 grand into my miata on top of the 5k buy in, and it's still not turbo or gofast swapped. 8 thousand miles so far. I'm gonna go destroy tires in anger now.
What's its value if you were to sell it though?
Ian F wrote: '03 VW Jetta TDI wagon. Purchased new. Currently about 329K miles. Fuel only: $.062/mile. Total: $.199/mile. Total fuel cost since new: $20,335. Total money spent since new (fuel, purchase, insurance, maintenance): $65,324 '08 Dodge Grand Caravan. Purchased used at the end of 2013. Currently about 164K miles. Fuel only: $.11/mile. Total cost per mile: $.267/mile (which should start going down as I just paid it off). Total fuel cost: $9426 Total cost: $22,881 I generally keep records for all of my cars since the speadsheet I use is easy to set up, although I didn't set one up for the Mini thinking the odometer wasn't accurate enough, which I regret. The fuel cost/mile for the classics is fairly normal. Since they aren't driven as much, the total cost tends to be high: well over $1. The worst of my "non-classic drivers" was my Dodge Cummins, which was nearly $1/mile - even with the selling money factored in.
Yay, I'm not the only one with convoluted spreadsheets at home 
I hope my diesel doesn't end up at $1/mile, I figured resale would help more vs a gasser, but maybe not.
Seems like a lot of people don't want to know - just because I know the #s doesn't mean I am responsible and stop buying/using my cars. If this were a business, I might change what cars I buy, etc. Since this is one of my hobbies, the cost is whatever it is. I'm not eating top ramen every day yet, so I'm doing OK
The 996 comes in at $1.17/mile ex purchase price, insurance and registration after 16000 miles. Might have something to do with the engine refresh. I think we better keep that for a while...
In reply to Brokeback:
Yes... over $65,000 to drive my TDI is around - mostly back and forth to work - is a rather sobering number. Makes me kinda wish I'd gotten a job in downtown Philadelphia so I could take the train into work (I can walk to the train station), although even that is not exactly cheap and there are other harder-to-define costs.
What really hurt the Cummins was it being a secondary use vehicle, so it's $/mile figure was closer to my classic cars. The fact that it was far less reliable than any of the classics made the figures even worse. I lost a ton of money when I sold it as well since it had broken again and I was just done with it. My BMW E30 was similar, although I paid less to buy it and spent less to fix it.
Sometimes you don't want to think about things you don't think about.
I tracked a few of my vehicles after getting rid of them and being able to count real world depreciation, and came up with around $.35-.50 per mile depending on the vehicle but I was counting depreciation, and repairs only, not insurance or gas.
My father purchased a yaris new in 2012, he is nearing 200k miles and including purchase price, gas and all other expenses he is at about $.16 per mile and that assumes a zero current value of said vehicle. He is a hyper miler and still on the original brakes and spark plugs.He drives a lot and has been to 10 of my challenge appearances.
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