Cost of Ownership

[Challo]

Does anyone have a simple calculation to work out how much a car will cost to run over the cost of a year?

What would I need to know to work out the costs?

MPG of the car?
Tax bracket?
price to buy?
my annual mileage?
insurance costs?
servicing costs?

Anything I have missed? Ideally I would like to do a comparision between cars

[tomsugden]

Depreciation.

[Challo]

tomsugden said:

Depreciation.

How would you work that out? Minus a small percentage for every year?

[Rawwr]

A stone best left unturned.

[Baryonyx]

Challo said:

How would you work that out? Minus a small percentage for every year?

It all depends on the car. Usually massive at the end and then tailing off. If it's special, it may even appreciate in later years!

[tomsugden]

Depends on the car, but it can be a lot more than a small percentage. If you buy new you can write off the 20% vat you just paid as you drive it out of the showroom.

[FamilyDub]

Will google not tell you all of these separately, or am I missing something?

/unhelpful mode

[otolith]

There are depreciation calculators online which should give you an idea. Or you can just look at the difference in sticker prices. Either way, you will have to make an assumption on future performance based on past performance and your own common sense.

[Bodo]

Challo said:

How would you work that out? Minus a small percentage for every year?

For this, you would need to know
a) how long you're keeping the car
b) what mileage you'll drive in that time

Also, it of course depends, if you're buying the car new or used, and then how used.

[STW2010]

The What Car website has a depreciation index for most cars, so if the car you are interested in has been around for a few years this should be able to give you some idea.

[STW2010]

Also, if you will keep the car until it is scrapped, then the depreciation is simple- it is the cost of purchase minus the scrap value, divided by the number of years you keep it.

[wezo]

As a curve ball after 30 years most Ferraris, Astons and Lambos are worth more than their purchase price, but the maintanence is likely to have been a fair bit - try factoirng that in.....

[Bodo]

Thus, a 993 is a cheap run about. Deprecation-wise Used ones have almost always been higher priced than their successor.

[kambites]

Challo said:

How would you work that out? Minus a small percentage for every year?

No, minus a large percentage every year.

[alock]

otolith said:

Or you can just look at the difference in sticker prices.

Only works if you buy and sell privately. Otherwise you also have to include the dealer markup.

[Challo]

Cheers all....just done a simple calculation of Fuel Cost for the year + Tax + Insurance costs.

Obviously missing servicing costs, and depreciation but I suppose it gives me a rough idea.

All second hand cars so the majority of hit already been taken, and because the cars are Audi and BMW should hold their prices.

[kambites]

In my experience, unless you're buying right at the bottom of the depreciation curve it makes little difference whether you buy new or second hand (assuming the same purchase price). Cars tend to lose roughly the same proportion of their remaining value every year of their life until they plateau at some level or other, which for a German rep mobile will be at shed money. Sure that proportion will be lower for a BMW than for a Ford, but not massively so.

I'd reckon on depreciation costing you roughly 25% of the car's value every year.