[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.