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"How running car costs £130 a week"

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  1. chdot
    Admin

    "
    Drivers are now paying an average of £128.64 a week to run a new car, while those with a used vehicle are still forking out as much as £52.75 a week.

    The investigation, by motoring organisation the RAC, found that depreciation – how much value a car loses over time – had risen most rapidly, up 16.67 per cent over the period, followed by insurance, which was up 14.38 per cent.

    Fuel was 12.4 per cent higher than a year ago, while maintenance costs, on average, were 8.8 per cent higher.

    "

    http://www.scotsman.com/the-scotsman/transport/how_running_car_costs_130_a_week_1_1979727

    Posted 13 years ago #

  2. spitters
    Member

    Title on the story should be
    "How running new car costs £130 a week"

    Posted 13 years ago #

  3. Smudge
    Member

    Although 130 is probably pretty b***y conservative! Our family diesel averages a sniff under 50mpg (properly calculated) and not that heavy useage, over £1600 this year already just in fuel...

    Try a look at fuelly.com for an interesting view of how much fuel vehicles really use. :-o

    Of course that ignores wear and tear, depreciation, servicing/repairs etc etc

    That 1.5 to 2K tourer starts to look like budget transport, even when you do keep buying goodies for it B-)

    Posted 13 years ago #

  4. DaveC
    Member

    Yep prior to moving back up here My costs were:

    Car - £6k over 6 years = £1K
    Fuel, 30k mpa (@50mpg Ave) = £3k
    Service x3 @ ~£330 = £1k
    Timing belt (every 2 yrs) = £0.150k (Topup cost on service split over the 2 years)
    MOT = £0.06k
    VED = £0.14k
    Insurance = £0.5k
    Tyres @~£80 each corner = £0.32k
    Others (non annual - Exhaugst etc) = £0.3k per year
    TOTAL = ~£6k
    Thats ~£115 a week

    This doesn't include my ECU which dies at 120k miles costing £1.1k at the dealer, washing it, and hoovering all the many tonnes of broken biscuits my two son's lost behind their seats!!!!!

    We lived 30 miles from Cambridge as housing was vastly cheeper, and it was a dual carrage way nearly door to door. Cambridge has a disconected transtport system and it was actually cheeper to travel by car than train, plus more convenient.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  5. Baldcyclist
    Member

    Wifes car, brand new Fiat 500, comes in at
    £159pm - cost to rent including servicing etc.
    £20pw - fuel
    £28pm - ins
    £30py - tax (sorry VED!)

    All in £62 per week, bargain!

    My car unfortunately probably costs an awful lot more!

    Posted 13 years ago #

  6. Smudge
    Member

    Of course the other problem is that even when people ignore all the "hidden" costs and just consider the cost of fuel they still tend to chronically underestimate the fuel consumption of their vehicles, I calculate the mpg figures probably every second tank to keep an eye on things, and if you had asked me I would have said they both do about 60mpg, over the last few days I did it accurately and over months of useage and the car does just under 50mpg, the bike just over 60mpg... so I do the sums and *still* get it wrong by 10mpg :-/

    Yet still I meet people who never actually calculate their mpg yet insist their car will do "an easy 60mg" at 80mph on the motorway... (which is in 99.9% of cases utter rot, as well as obviously illegal)

    Posted 13 years ago #

  7. amir
    Member

    I think my car will do about 58 mpg or so on good country roads at about 50 to 60mph. On the motorway at 60 to 70 mph that shrinks to about 52 mpg.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  8. Smudge
    Member

    That's pretty good (depending on the type). One of the reasons we bought our current one (2 litre turbodiesel) is that it will manage a fairly standard 40mpg on short hop cold start town work (about the same as most small hatches!) yet will do 60mpg on a long motorway run. iirc our best over a tank was around the 70mpg mark but that was a long gentle run so relatively exceptional.
    Now I've started logging it online it's becoming a bit of a challenge to get a better mpg figure each tank. (managed 72mpg out of the bike last fill up, whoo-hoo! lol)

    Mind you, I reckon the Surly is still a good deal easier on the fuel... except on the days wher the after run top-up consists of a single malt ;-)

    Posted 13 years ago #

  9. amir
    Member

    Yeah - bikes are pretty good on fuel. Though the commuting bikes use quite a few ml of oil per year. I can't get mine to go much over 40mph though (downhill - I am not Kaputnik).

    Posted 13 years ago #

  10. DaveC
    Member

    I used to tail (well not quiet) HGVs on the A14 each way. 56mph, gave me 50mpg easily, and if I really fethered the peddles, I could get +60mpg. I wasn't in the fast lane being strssed and could enjoy the radio and chill before work.

    I serviced my car yesterday. The lock on the front passebnger door needed replacing as it wouldn't open. 5 hours of work, £100 lock and service consumables cost me £473.18.... Ouch!! But then I gave a wry smile when the guy in the garage asked me to clarify the 238,018 miles on the clock.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  11. DaveC
    Member

    My bike costs me an extra 40p a day in fuel... 2 more bread rolls with my soup....

    Posted 13 years ago #

  12. Smudge
    Member

    @Amir you need a bigger hill ;-)
    Home down to the station is an *easy* 40mph+ in places, mind you, going back up it on the way home is a little slower :-(

    Posted 13 years ago #

  13. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    Wow, just worked mine out...

    Mini Clubman S

    Fuel £2792 pa (according to fuelly average of 29.3mpg and 12,000 miles (though I think we do about 5-6mpg better than that)
    Insurance approx £250
    VED £115
    Finance about £3600
    (no maintenance/MOT/servicing costs - new motah)

    Gives me... £129 per week.

    I'm so average it's scary. Although that doesn't include depreciation, although Minis do better than most for that, especially if you get them in the right colour - this is our third, and the first (ONE - red) did brilliantly 4 years after buying it (lost £3k?); the S (blue) wasn't as great after 2 and a half years; but the Clubman is in white (both wishing we'd actually gone for the blue again, but for resale the white is spot-on).

    Posted 13 years ago #

  14. recombodna
    Member

    16 year old Transit van. £64 per week plus many many hours stuck under it with a welder............

    Posted 13 years ago #

  15. Smudge
    Member

    Interesting :-) imho well worth utilising the fuelly site to track any trends (we use noticeably more fuel over the winter months for instance)and letting others see a "real" consumption figure for the vehicle type.

    Still a quite scary set of numbers. Makes me wonder what else one could do with £130 a week!

    Posted 13 years ago #

  16. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    I partly justify the cost as £65 each for me and my other half as we only have the one car...

    I need to get a classic car which 'increases' in value to cancel out the running costs.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  17. amir
    Member

    Or a pedal car?

    Posted 13 years ago #

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