[dangus]

Owning a car yourself is the most costly option, so I would hope that it is the “best.” Purchase price, depreciation, maintenance, insurance, fuel.

Edit: to be clear I’m putting “best” in quotes because personal car ownership is pretty terrible in terms of value.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Owning a car yourself is the most costly option, so I would hope that it is the “best.”

I drove a car into San Francisco once. Never again. Not having to worry about parking, being able to nap or work en route, not having to get stressed by traffic, etc. Massive improvement in QOL.

[andrewprock]

If you pay a lot for parking or don't use the car much this tracks. But if you have the volume, then owning a car is cheaper.

An affordable mid size car costs roughly $6k per year total cost for a new car, and about 2/3 that for a used car.

If you commute daily to work, that is 500 trips per year. Two weekend trips adds another 100 per year. Now we are talking about ~$10/trip if you own your car.

When you add the premium value you get from flexibility, then it's an even better deal. If you only drive 50x a year then yeah, just use services.

[rufus_foreman]

>> An affordable mid size car costs roughly $6k per year

Show your math.

[johnnyanmac]

Really? do you want to see every little receipt from the GP?

I'll give a rough cost with my small sedan pre-pandemic

- Gas every 2 weeks (30 mile commute to work), fillin up the car is about $60. so $120 for gas. 120/month is 1440/year

- DMV costs are $150 a year

- car wash every few months. Let's make it monthly and more expensive than my actual washes. $50/month, 600 a year

- oil change every 3 months or so (probably less, but let's be conservative here). $70/quarter, 280/year.

- occasional repairs due to being an old car. sporadic, but let's throw in maybe $300 a year total.

- Finally, $100/month for insurance. $1200/Year.

so, ~4000/year. Given that that was a daily commute along with other short travel, it's cheaper than the idea of relying on taxis. Even if it was as cheap as $10/ride, it'd cost $4800/year to get to work alone. For my commute, it'd be more like $40-50/ride. Not even close.

ofc the rub here is that these are the costs for a paid off car, so if you don't own a car you need to factor in car payments, or the one time cost grabbing a used car. I grabbed my car for $5k before the car market (and every other market) went to hell, so it still very quickly paid for itself.

[bombcar]

It's all down to miles per year, a new car should last 100k miles "without major repairs" and if you drive 10k miles a year (whatever, if it's more it's more in favor of the owner) a car should last at least 10 years.

A new car is $40k, a 10 year old car seems to go for about $10k, so say $3k a year. So with a brand new car, still getting "around" that $6-7k a year.

Or to put it another way - at some point it HAS to be cheaper to own, because someone owns the car that is driving you around!

[Solvency]

I bought a 2022 vehicle and my annual registration is $600.

[rufus_foreman]

>> oil change every 3 months or so

That's just plain stupid.

[johnnyanmac]

How is an oil change every 3 months stupid? Every 3000 miles I get a change, and I had to commute a minimum of 70 miles a day. Comes out to 42 days per milestone, or 8-9 weeks if only counting weekdays. I felt like I always put it off and the math checks out.

My driving went way down during the pandemic, but it's probably a better normal metric to measure my routine before a global anamloly.

>600 a year on car washes?

I was being very generous there to prove a point. I don't do a car wash monthly and I don't get the highest tier of car wash either.

Even the "stupidest" spending on my car for daily travel and I don't come within a stone's throw of justifying taxis, financially speaking save on.

[rufus_foreman]

I think I last got an oil change early on during the pandemic.

Sometime around then.

I do think my car needs a car wash. Not necessarily this month, but definitely within the next year or so. It costs $5 in quarters at the car wash. Maybe $10. Not $600 a year.

If you are spending $600 a year on car washes, I want to start a business, and I want you, specifically you, as my customer.

[seanmcdirmid]

You can't park your own car at the airport safely and economically for a two week trip.

[johnnyanmac]

yeah, That's the only time I really consider Uber, when doing long term travel and parking costs/risks outweigh the cost of a taxi.

[whimsicalism]

owning a car in sf is miserable, i lasted 1 year