How much does your car cost per month?

[Froomee]

Depreciation can only be calculated upon selling

Iv only had my car two months I’d say based on other examples the max will be £3k in the first year and £2k in the next few approx.

So add £200-250p/m.

=£630/£680 p/m.

[Cyder]

2019 Qashqai through work.

Monthly payment £145
Fuel £150

£295/month all in and I do about 25k miles per year.

[SidewaysSi]

Mmmm love the spreadsheet boys. Hope you include the cost of electricity used in firing up the laptop?

[Maldini35]

Sambucket said:

You don't get to exclude depreciation just cos you paid cash!

In that case I’ve made a few quid as I’d get a grand more for my car now if I were to sell.

[greysquirrel]

SidewaysSi said:

Lotus Elise cost is -£200 a month over 6 years. Cheapest car I have owned.

I’ve had 2, one of the only cars that when you go to sell you aren’t reeling from the depreciation. If I had kept them both they would now also be worth more than I paid for them looking at the current market.

[bracken78]

MaxSo said:

bracken78 said:

2014 BMW 120d brought in January 2018

Brought for: £10,700 (at 37,650 miles)
Insurance: £32.58 per month
Tax: £2.50 per month
Service & Maintenance: £460.20 / 18 = £31.12 per month - this covers everything from new wipers to services.
Fuel over 21,357miles at 53.59 MPG = 2,444.68 / 18 = £135.81 per month

£200.90 per month without depreciation or 16.9ppm.

Including depreciation and assuming a value of £8,500 now (£2,200) = £122.22 per month

£323.12 per month without depreciation or ppm or 27.23ppm.

Edit to add, looking at my car history and running costs of my old 2005 120d, over almost 50,000 miles the ppm running cost was 26ppm so, almost the same. The old 120d had some big bills towards the end of its time with me.

Edited by bracken78 on Thursday 27th June 13:30

This seems to be pretty good going. Only thing I wonder is, I suppose if a car is being purchased outright another cost that maybe ought to be factored in is the 'cost' of that cash being tied up in the car rather than it being invested or used to make additional mortgage payments etc - just a thought.

The current 120d is presently very cheap to run however, the next service is going to be a big one and will need to include some discs and pads so the ppm will no doubt jump up, fair enough really. You make a very good point over using the money to invest elsewhere or pay down the mortgage but after looking over costs/options such as leases, PCP, HP etc. if felt more comfortable owning this car outright. It’s also worth bearing in mind I will own the car for a long time (5 years) and am doing 15K ish per year. I could not work out a cheaper way to commute without going for a smaller car. The budget was set at £10,000 but a good deal with a private sale come up so the budget went up a bit.

Would love an i3 but it worked out more expensive ☹

[MaxSo]

bracken78 said:

The current 120d is presently very cheap to run....

Yes - looks like great value for a quality car. The main issue for me is that I don't believe it's ULEZ exempt and that's going to kick in next year which rules it for me unfortunately. I haven't driven or even been in an ICE car since having the i3 - I'm not currently sure how a transition back to IC would go if I do end up doing so at some point. I suspect I may have got more used to the electric drivetrain that I probably realise.

[Gad-Westy]

I'm almost at the end of a 2 year lease on a Seat Leon Cupra 300 DSG. Lease was for 16k miles total, job change means final figure will be around 24k @6.4p per mile extra.

Headline figures look okay on a 1+23 @ £304 per month but you do have to be ruthlessly realistic to see real costs. People often miss off some of the smaller, less obvious costs.

My breakdown is something along these lines:

Lease Payment (amortised including all fees, excess mileage payments, and likely damage fees)
£375.67

Servicing and tyres, 2 services within 24,000 miles, 2 new tyres
£58

Insurance
£32

Fuel
£165

Gap insurance
£6

So I'm at £636.67 per month for a fairly average vehicle doing pretty average miles.

[gizlaroc]

bracken78 said:

The current 120d is presently very cheap to run however, the next service is going to be a big one and will need to include some discs and pads so the ppm will no doubt jump up, fair enough really. You make a very good point over using the money to invest elsewhere or pay down the mortgage but after looking over costs/options such as leases, PCP, HP etc. if felt more comfortable owning this car outright. It’s also worth bearing in mind I will own the car for a long time (5 years) and am doing 15K ish per year. I could not work out a cheaper way to commute without going for a smaller car. The budget was set at £10,000 but a good deal with a private sale come up so the budget went up a bit.

Would love an i3 but it worked out more expensive ?

Buying at 3-4 years old and keeping them for 2-3 years before issues arise does seem to be the sweet spot imho.

[benjeffrey]

2017 A45 AMG

Only owned the car two months so far.

PCP: £398 p/m
Tax: £40pm
Insurance: £100 p/m
Fuel: £275pm @ 23mpg)
Maintenance: Nothing yet...

Total: £813 p/m - Christ.

[MaxSo]

Gad-Westy said:

Servicing and tyres, 2 services within 24,000 miles, 2 new tyres
£58

Insurance
£32

Fuel
£165

Gap insurance
£6

So I'm at £636.67 per month for a fairly average vehicle doing pretty average miles.

£58 x 24 for 2 services and 2 tyres? Is that correct?

I would have very much liked to lease something like this a few years back, but I ended up going for two diesels due to the fuel cost pretty much being half (ok, maybe that's a slight exaggeration).

[Gad-Westy]

MaxSo said:

£58 x 24 for 2 services and 2 tyres? Is that correct?

I would have very much liked to lease something like this a few years back, but I ended up going for two diesels due to the fuel cost pretty much being half (ok, maybe that's a slight exaggeration).

Realised after I posted that number is 2 years cost total but only spread over 12 months so it's wrong but I'm likely to need another pair of tyres before it goes back so it's still quite a lot more than half that number.

One thing I see often missed on people's costs is either any initial deposit or document fees. Most leases certainly have something there. It can actually be quite high. If I was being anal, I also had to buy a £100 train ticket to go and collect mine. There's another £5 per month!

[Sheepshanks]

Gad-Westy said:

Realised after I posted that number is 2 years cost total but only spread over 12 months so it's wrong but I'm likely to need another pair of tyres before it goes back so it's still quite a lot more than half that number.

If the finance was VWFS did you get a price for service, maint and tyres? Sometimes the figure seems remarkably low.

Also, lease cars should be on longlife service so it should have only needed one service unless your type of use brought the service up early - but even then I've heard dealers will just reset it.

[MaxSo]

This spreadsheet I made a while back has been posted in a seperate thread but thought I'd post it here also as it could be useful.

All you need to do is fill in the yellow sections and it should automatically calculate the "amortised" monthly, and the overall monthly cost inc. fuel etc etc.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ARUrS7YaFM...

As far as I understand Google Sheets, you need to download a copy of the spreadsheet via the link so that you can then use it as you wish in your Sheets account, Excel or Apple Numbers (If anyone knows of a better solution to share it please let me know).

Also, let me know if there are any suggestion to improve it.

(I have previously adapted it for my own use so I could compare the estimated costs of various potential used car purchases, and also more recently the cost of running my i3)

Cheers

Edited by MaxSo on Friday 28th June 14:12

[Gad-Westy]

Sheepshanks said:

Gad-Westy said:

Realised after I posted that number is 2 years cost total but only spread over 12 months so it's wrong but I'm likely to need another pair of tyres before it goes back so it's still quite a lot more than half that number.

If the finance was VWFS did you get a price for service, maint and tyres? Sometimes the figure seems remarkably low.

Also, lease cars should be on longlife service so it should have only needed one service unless your type of use brought the service up early - but even then I've heard dealers will just reset it.

Didn't check the fully maintained option but then I wasn't really expecting need to service it at all or at most only once as I'd originally anticipated doing around 15k miles. My car is supposedly on long life servicing and yet still requested it's first service at 9k miles and 10 months old. I use it for a 16 mile commute through mixed traffic and in all honesty drive very sensibly these days so it was a bit of shocker. I argued that it seemed ridiculous with the dealer at the time but they wouldn't budge. Maybe I should have challenged it more at the time but since it was already overdue and I had a long week of driving ahead, I paid up.

[Engelberger]

Depreciation should be factored in and many PCP costs seem to exclude deposit which is cheating!

The following is a bit pointless tbh because the maintenance cost is down to my "regardless of cost, get it done" approach to three cars I have bought and then restored to a condition I regard as acceptable (near perfect). This means that the cost per month should greatly decrease over the coming few years. For example in the below costs nearly £3,000 of paintwork has been done. £1000 has been spent on wheel refurbs etc etc

Porsche 996 C4S (restoration project so figures are disproportionate)

PCP: N/A purchased
Tax: £25.41pm
Insurance: £16.75 p/m
Fuel: £68pm @ 25mpg)
Maintenance: £219.33pm (when calculating cost minus mild rise in value across ownership)

Total per month £329.49

Golf GTI Mk5 (restoration project just completed so figures are disproportionate)

PCP: N/A purchased
Tax: £25pm
Insurance: £21.35 p/m
Fuel: £166pm @ 26mpg)
Maintenance: £296.43pm (when calculating cost minus mild rise in value across 9 mths ownership)

Total per month £508.78

Mini R56 Cooper S

PCP: N/A purchased
Tax: £25.41pm
Insurance: Included in Golf cost p/m
Fuel: £27.52pm @ 26mpg)
Maintenance: £219.33pm (when calculating cost minus mild rise in value across 9 mths ownership)

Total per month £272.26

Total cost per month £1110.53

Interesting exercise. In reality my costs across all 3 cars in a normal year should be

Tax: £75.72pm
Insurance: 38.10 p/m
Fuel: £147.05pm @ 26mpg)
Maintenance: £75pm (when calculating cost minus mild rise in value across 9 mths ownership)

Total Cost £335.87

[bracken78]

MaxSo said:

Yes - looks like great value for a quality car. The main issue for me is that I don't believe it's ULEZ exempt and that's going to kick in next year which rules it for me unfortunately. I haven't driven or even been in an ICE car since having the i3 - I'm not currently sure how a transition back to IC would go if I do end up doing so at some point. I suspect I may have got more used to the electric drivetrain that I probably realise.

Your right, it's not ULEZ compliant being a EURO5 car but luckily, that is not an issue for me. When I drove an i3 I really liked them, maybe next time.

[tril]

2015 Audi RS3

£320 per month
£800 per year insurance

Only use it to drive from West London to Oxford every couple of weekends and a bit of driving in London. Probably 1.5 tanks or about £90 per month in fuel.

[gizlaroc]

GetCarter said:

2% of my income.

..and I think that's the only way to investigate this.

ETA If a Premiership footballer is paying £3k a month on a Bentley, it's daft, but it's a tiny proportion of his income.

It's the proportion of income that is of interest.

My last car cost me nearly 50% of my income, that Ferrari FF over 12 months from new was a stupid move.

Obviously nonsense, but it shows that percentage is no more important.

If I lost £120k in a year but still had £120k left, I would be far better off than someone who spent 5% of their income on a car but was left with nothing spare at each month.

[95JO]

tril said:

2015 Audi RS3

£320 per month
£800 per year insurance

Only use it to drive from West London to Oxford every couple of weekends and a bit of driving in London. Probably 1.5 tanks or about £90 per month in fuel.

It isn't taxed, MOT'd, serviced and doesn't depreciate?