5/28 For the clue impaired, total cost of ownership of a typical
American car:
http://tinyurl.com/38gveq
Note that it is double the purchase price, over just the
first five years.
\_ Proving the point that if you look at TOC, buying a crappy car
is hardly much savings over a new car, since most of the
expense over, say, 10 years is fuel and insurance anyway.
If you're trying to prove that it's cheaper to walk to work,
then - DUH.
\_ Insurance on my crappy car was much less than on my new car.
And even 6 years later things would still be less. Plus on
a crappy car things like theft insurance are silly, it would
cost less to buy a new one than pay for theft insurance for a
few years. Hell, probably the same deal with comprehensive.
\_ Comprehensive (which covers theft) is cheap. As I said
before, most of the cost of insurance is liability, which
is the same on a cheap or expensive car.
\_ You were wrong the first time you said it, too. The only
time that is true is when your car is either not worth
much, or you have really expensive liability insurance,
due to too many accidents or tickets, or being very young.
\_ I just looked at my policy again. Collision (which
is entirely optional) is less than 50% of my cost.
That's for an expensive car. For my cheaper car,
the collision is even less. I have no accidents or
tickets and have been licensed 16 years. I carry
100/300K coverage for liability.
\_ Sure, if you carry 10X the required liability coverage
your liability cost is higher. How much would it be
if you carried 1M/2M?
\_ I have assets I want to protect. With all the
expensive cars on the road in CA and the cost
of medical care, I even feel 100/300 is a
little low.
\_ Why not get 1M/2M then? Then you could
justify driving any car you wanted, because
your insurance costs would swamp all other
costs.
\_ License fee is lower too.
\_ True.
\_ Proving that is costs much more than $256/mo to own and operate
a car. -OP
\_ Which was never an issue to be debated. The issue was
whether $25x/month is worth it over an old beater. |