Featured Conversations at a Toyota dealership

The gps stopped working on my 2012. I had no clue, so I just used my phone

 

What do you mean to cost $x to fix my car? I'm not paying that. You guys are robbing me lmao

 

You put that much faith in what "the government" says?

Yes, the IRS offers a business deduction rate that assigns all costs to amortize over mileage only, not over time. But it has restrictions. Other uses are allowed only much lower rates.

In a more nuanced model of personal car ownership, apart from IRS business expense deduction rules, costs don't stop while the car is parked, but continue ticking up with the calendar. For some use patterns, more costs are better assigned to the calendar than to the odometer.

When you leave your own car parked at home and rent another similar vehicle to drive, do your fixed ownership costs drop? Mine don't. The rent-to-drive model works better when it allows someone to either avoid ownership entirely, or to reduce the 'household fleet'.

Maybe true now, but I remember some times when the expected fuel cost over the life of the car, was similar to or sometimes greater than its MSRP.

 

We can revisit this again sometime between 100k and 250k miles.

 

i agree that fuel costs are insignificant. that's why so many americans drive vehicles much larger than they need.

 

I agree with bisco's post - with an exception-
if you are a cheapskate and pay close attention to buying an economy vehicle you can save just a tremendous amount of money.

Example:
Car A gets 50 mpg and you keep it for 10 years and drive it 150,000 miles.
Car B gets 20 mpg and you keep it 10 years and drive it 150,000 miles.

Car A -50 mpg over 150,000 miles = 3000 gallons of gas used.
Car B - 20 mpg over 150,000 miles = 7,500 gallon of gas used.

Car A = 3000 gallons of gas x $3.50/ gallon = $10,500 spent on gas.
Car B = 7,500 gallons of gas x $3.50 = $26,250 spent on gas.

Car A saved $15,750 on gas cost.
They would have also probably saved considerable money also on tires, maintenance, insurance etc.

The fuel cost savings are even more if you have a PHEV or EV and the electricity cost are cheap.
For our PHEV currently we average about $1.10 for a 50 mile run on electric.

If you are a penny pincher you can save tremendous amounts of money over time with a smaller efficient car-
this money can then be invested and grow even more or spent on the family.