[bryanlarsen]

If you put 200,000 miles on a $50,000 40 mpg car over 10 years, that's $50,000 for the car, $15,000 for insurance, $25,000 for gas, and almost certainly more than $10,000 for tires, maintenance and repairs.

There is a rule of thumb that the purchase price of the car is 1/3 of the cost over its lifetime. That's pretty generous in 2024 since cars now have better mileage, better reliability and cost more, but it's almost certainly more than half the cost.

That's over $10,000 a year

[nwienert]

The average car purchase price in the US is under 34k

[bryanlarsen]

Does that include used vehicles? Average for new is $47k. https://fortune.com/2024/02/28/how-expensive-new-used-cars-o...

And new is appropriate, since used price is payment from one owner to another. IOW, if one side of the transaction gets a good deal the other gets a bad one, leaving average unchanged.

Average annual capital cost is new price divided by lifetime.

[nwienert]

First - the average number there is according to Kelly Blue Books "proprietary editorial process", and I have doubts. Given it's spiked in recent years too we can assume that 90% of people today aren't at this new inflated price even if it's true and likely many more are holding out or buying used now.

Second - every one of your numbers is rounded up quite a bit, especially mileage as the average mileage would be 135k by year 10.

Third - You left out selling your 50k car in year 10 given 135k miles.

Fourth - EAC, one way to get to the truth, not the only.

[bryanlarsen]

I never claimed the numbers were average. The OP claimed that $10,000 a year on a car is uncommon. I'm saying that you don't have to go much above average to pay $10,000 a year on your car -- that spending $10,000 a year is common, even if a little less than 50% of people do so.

[nwienert]

I'd guess closer to 10% than 50% do, the more average amount would be closer to 5k/year making the original claim pretty far off.