How much does it cost to run/maintain a car?

[NeedToShareEek]

I'm thinking of learning to drive at the ripe old age of 40 😂

But DP and I are planning/saving for early retirement, so I'm trying to get a picture of the financial implications of getting a car.

I know it's a piece-of-string question but how much does it roughly cost to run and maintain a car?

Let's say a medium sized car (Honda Jazz kind of size) used as a run-around so a few hundred miles a year.

I know the cost of buying a car and lessons, I'm just struggling to get a handle on running it year to year.

Sorry if it's really vague. Thank you!!

I honestly don’t think they are given how much I use mine and how useful it is on a day to day basis.

It depends massively on the car.

For example, I could spend £2k on a Volvo that would probably last me 4 years. That's £35 a month depreciation (you get scrap at the end), £10 a month road tax, £60ish insurance, then fuel, services, repairs, parking on top.

Or I could get a newer volvo. Up to £1000 a month lease, potentially £60 a month road tax, £100 insurance (these are all ballpark). You'll likely have lower repairs.

Personally I aim for about £100 a month all in but you're more likely to end up with closer to £200 with uses car prices what they are these days. The trick is to play about with a few options checking upfront cost, roadtax, fuel consumption, insurance, service costs.

Strongly disagree, depending on how much you use/need them.

For someone like OP who is going to do a few hundred miles a year, yeah, it’s not worth the money.

But for us as a family even if we just take myself as an example, it takes me about 20 minutes to drive into work, in a typical week I probably go through about £25 of fuel. I could use public transport to get to work, it would take 1 hour 15 minutes and the daily tickets because there isn’t a direct route would cost me £9 a day, so for a week £45 and on top of being more expensive it would also have me spending 2.5 hours a day commuting rather than 40 minutes. That’s without factoring in weekends, so if I wanted to go out, do a weekly food shop etc, that would be another £5 each day just on ticket fees, plus another £5 if my husband was coming with me. Plus the hassle of carrying a full shop home on the bus/train.

We travel quite a bit, the train tickets to Edinburgh for the Christmas markets last year were coming in at £190, the fuel in the car was about £60. We stay in the Lakes quite a few times every year, without the car that would be 2 trains & then a taxi, more expensive & more inconvenient.

Cars can & do make your life a lot easier and often cheaper IF you are using them. For OP a few hundred miles a year it’s not worth it but for most people they definitely are.

Fair enough, although it can be a revelation how much cheaper life is sans car

I have this car and similar expenses except that my insurance is very cheap, and always has been, even when I was a new driver. I think this is mainly because of where I live, and also the fact that despite not learning to drive till my late 30s, being an older woman driver is lower risk. So you may find OP that you have cheaper or more expensive insurance depending on where you live - you can play with some insurance calculators by telling them different cars and your address and get some quotes.

OP, it sounds to me like a useful thing which might well benefit your life (and your husband's) if you can drive.
I have a small Citroen, bought second hand and runs nicely, now about 6 years old. Costs are:
Vehicle tax approx £200 per year
Estimate for MOT, maintenance, full service every 3rd year, bits of servicing in between = up to £1000 per year. Some years it's less
Car insurance approx £280 per year (this would be higher for you as a new driver)
Breakdown cover £100 per year
Petrol / parking costs - up to £700 per year, of course this is what could alter the most depending on how much petrol you use, and where you may need to park.

And time consuming and boring.

In most cases it takes forever to get somewhere because buses are often slow, infrequent and unreliable.

You'd really struggle if you needed to do something like drop a child off at school/nursery on the way to work. Likewise drop into the supermarket/doctors on the way home.

Imagine running DC round multiple clubs in the evening?

Want to go hiking in the countryside? Forget it.

I have a reasonably cheap car. I'm happy with the cost and freedom it gives me. It's probably a bit small for the OP as it's a Skoda Citigo and it means I can get to work in 30 minutes not 90. I can run all the errands I need to do. I can go anywhere I like, which usually is where public transport doesn't exist.

I'm not at the mercy of train fares that are extortionate unless I book a journey months in advance and then can't change my plans because I'd lose the money I'd paid.

I agree totally - it's just weighing all that up

I'm getting the sense that I've been a bit cautious in my estimate of a few hundred miles per year 😅

I'm guessing I've estimated low because I don't currently have a car. So far this year, I can think of four times when I'd have used a car.
But that's because I don't have one. If I did have one, I'd have likely used it a lot more just because I could.

Hilarious we hike, we shop, we drop off on foot at school (they don't allow you anywhere near by car), we do clubs.

Trains are not that expensive and buses not that bad, we use taxis

I've just bought 4 new tyres for my zafira and they cost £300.
Windscreen repair cost £80. (Sometimes covered in your insurance but mine cost less than my policy excess).
I no longer drive into Bristol because I will have to pay a £9 congestion charge each time.

Have you considered learning to drive and then joining a car club?

I agree with these costs, in reality, they're probably on the high side, I wouldn't expect the servicing and maintenance of a small car that doesn't travel very far to be quite £1k pa. My fuel is probably higher because I do around 7000 miles per year, which costs about 13 p per mile, say £1000 per year.

My car cost £8k at 2 years old and I will be keeping it for around a decade, even if I count it as worthless at 12 years old, so £8k depreciation, that all adds up to around £2-300 per month averaged over time, for a massive convenience compared with public transport and taxis, which wouldn't cost that much less unless you never went anywhere. I've been in a taxi twice in the last year. One journey cost £12 for 3-4 miles because the bus didn't turn up and the other was a £42 12 mile airport run so you wouldn't need many taxi journeys on top of regular buses to start costing more than running your own car.

I hadn't considered a car club, no. That's a great idea.

This clearly depends where you live though then doesn’t it?

We go to the Lakes hiking for the weekend frequently, it would take 2 trains and a taxi to get to where we like to stay. Quick search tells me the cost of that would be roughly £240 for us 3. We would then need a taxi to the start of most of the mountains, there’s another £20ish each way + we would need to hope we could actually find one. If you like to go places that aren’t directly on a train line or bus route, which lots of places aren’t, it is ££££

My commute to work would take 2 hours longer every day without the car, if I got to work and then got the call to say my child was unwell and needed collecting it would take me an hour and half to get back to her vs 20-25 minutes in the car.

2 kids at 2 different clubs that are 2 miles apart but start within 15 minutes of each other isn’t doable unless you have a car or a parent to attend each.

Buses where we live are horrendously bad. Cancellations, turning up late etc every single day (MIL uses them), I’d have to set off 30 mins earlier for anything with a set time because I couldn’t guarantee all transport would be on time as it very rarely is.

And trains usually are that expensive (depending on where you live), a quick search tells me it would cost is £145 to get return trains to Edinburgh at the weekend, that would cost us £60 in fuel.. no brainer if you travel a lot.

We walk out of Braithwaite near Keswick. 2 trains and bus or taxi to get from Penrith to Keswick. Getting around when there is usually by bus.

Usually go for a week

2 trains & a bus or taxi, plus being reliant on a bus to get around when there, and you’re trying to convince me that’s more convenient than just getting in my car and arriving exactly where I want to be with no concern that 1 missed train or cancelled train or delayed train could throw the whole thing off?

Plus to add to that, the convenience of being able to wake up and decide to just head over there. Versus having to check trains, book those, check timetables. And the cost on top of that, if I decide on the day we can’t/won’t go then the train fares are gone, with the car you just… don’t go, no money lost.

I go hiking every weekend, sometimes both days and possibly in the week too.

Anywhere I like in the Yorkshire Dales, North York Moors, South Pennies, Yorkshire Wolds or Peak District, without having to find buses or book trains, that half the time don't exist.

I drive a 2023 Audi A1 that I have owned from new. I use it for the school run, driving to the station for work twice a week, ferrying the kids about and shopping. I do about 5,000 miles annually.

I spend about £70 a month on petrol and £16 a month on tax.
My insurance (fully comp inc commuting and protected no claims) is £54 a month, I’ve been driving 20 years and have 10+ years no claims.

Tyres can be repaired sometimes as long as the wall of the tyre is not damaged, I had a puncture recently and the repair cost £20 vs about £100 for a new tyre.

My car came with 3 years complimentary breakdown cover so I’m not currently paying for that, but I previously used to pay about £100 a year for AA membership.

MOT costs vary wildly depending on what parts need replacing through wear and tear, labour costs your garage charge etc. An annual service is around £300-£400 where I am.

Well - it depends on your lifestyle doesn’t it?

I wouldn’t be able to run my business without a car, neither would DH. We’d also not be able to reliably get to other well-paying jobs due to our location so we’d mostly be stuck earning minimum wage in retail or hospitality.

We’d no longer be able to go to the cinema without checking timetables and factoring in £10 on train fares. We’d no longer be able to for a meal at our local pub as you can’t get there on foot and the nearest train station is two miles away on NSL roads. We wouldn’t be able to take the dog to the beach and have lunch at the cafe on a Sunday as the trains don’t run then. We wouldn’t be able to have a day out on a bank holiday as again, no trains.

I wouldn’t be able to go and see my parents as the journey by public transport is over 4x as long as it is by car and would cost me £60 a go.

My car costs me on average £150 a month and I can do all of those things. It’s an absolute bargain considering what I get in return.

I drive a Mazda 3, it’s really old and I’ve had it for years. Been driving about 10 years.

Road tax: £203 / year
Insurance: £224 / year, just renewed
Fuel: About £120 a month
Service & repairs: approx £500 in the last year

Hope that’s some help.

I have a Honda jazz. Around £300 insurance. Servicing £200-£250 I think a year.

its just had its 12th birthday and I haven’t spent anything other than servicing and routine tyres / breakpads. They are very reliable.

My car is 16yrs old. I do about 1k miles a year so it's mostly sitting and gathering dust.

Tax is £13 a month. Insurance is about £22 a month. It tends to sail through the MOT (I hope I'm not tempting fate now!) which is about £45 for the test each year. Petrol, I chuck in about £30 every two or three months.

I have questioned why I keep it, but it's security knowing if there's an emergency, that I have transport.

It's area dependent. Around here, trains are awful, expensive and unreliable. Buses likewise unreliable. Public transport and taxis etc are fine if you're in a big city, but there are lots of smaller cities, towns and villages where a car is pretty much essential for day to day activities. I used to work just 20 miles away in a different town but it would take over 2 hours by train - 3 different trains as none were direct, lots of hanging around stations for connections etc - and that was just station to station, so time added to get between home/work and stations at each end.

My son moved to a small city for his first graduate job. Found a flat on a bus route a few miles out of the city but still within the ring road. Never imagined he'd need a car. But, within the first couple of weeks, it became apparent the buses were pretty useless - the one that would get him to work on time only ran 2 or 3 days out of 5 - either cancelled or just didn't turn up on other days. The later bus (every hour!) got him to work too late, the earlier bus got him to work far too early (if they ran!). Even when the bus was running, it would end up delayed because of roadworks, diversions, or often the driver would just park up outside the railway station and literally disappear - presumably for his break, loo stop, or driver change, but would never announce how long he would be, so sometimes they'd be parked there 5 minutes which is OK, but other times, he'd just give up and walk when it was still parked with no sign of movement after 15-20 minutes! He started getting warnings at work for being late, through no fault of his own.

After a couple of months, he bought a car!

Those living in areas with good public transport don't know how lucky they are and don't realise how bad it can be in other places.

Most of that wouldn’t be possible on public transport where I live 🤷‍♀️

We can only get a taxi if we book in advance. No uber, no option to just ring for a taxi and get one.

Trains aren’t overly expensive but they only go up or down the coast - as do the buses. If you want to go inland, you can’t - unless you have four hours to spare to do a 40 minute car journey. A taxi would be possible but it would cost you £40 each way.

Even if you do want to get the train - they rarely run on Sundays, and buses don’t run at all on weekends. Neither run on bank holidays.

Sure, you can get the train sometimes or plan around the bus timetable but a car is much cheaper and a hell of a lot more convenient. I don’t even like driving that much but there is no way I would live where I do and restrict myself to a life without a car.

No more impromptu trips to lunch or to the pub.
No Sunday morning dog walks on the beach.
No more rainy Sundays where we can just pop to the cinema or inland to a museum.
No more trips to see my parents as we can’t afford £160 on two of us to get there and back.

I’d need to close my business and DH would need to close his. Neither of us would be able to rely on public transport to get to work so we’d have to work for minimum wage in tourism, hospitality or retail.

It’s honestly great that you can manage without a car but there are still huge areas of the country where that’s virtually impossible unless you’re happy to restrict yourself to the small town you live in.

I imagine you'll find you'll bib about more than you think you will. The world becomes a lot bigger when you can drive, so you'll end up planning trips that wouldn't necessarily occur to you now.

But the actual driving isn't the expensive bit. A Honda Jazz isn't going to eat fuel. You'll likely be able to travel 100 miles with two gallons or thereabouts. A gallon today is about £6.30.