To ask for your solutions to paying for petrol in a car sharing situation.

[Tworingsandamicrowave]

Long story bearable, the two eldest children share a car but constantly squabble over who needs to fill the tank. DS uses the car for long journeys and DD uses it for short but more frequent journeys. Neither of them have full time jobs but earn roughly the same. There are frequent arguments which result in each one putting in the minimum they can get away with.

They really should be able to sort this out themselves but no-one seems to be able to come up with a sensible long-term solution. Please give me ideas that's they can try.

Who owns the car, for a start?

I would say that they clearly can't share a car.

After each journey they return it full? Like a hire car.

Who owns the car, for a start?

I would say that they clearly can't share a car.

Maybe a mile log book so each records start and finish mileage. Fill up tank and each pays a percentage of what they used in the last tank.

get them to keep a log in the car and each one write down the milage from the cars milage counter. When the car needs petrol divide the cost of the petrol by the total number of miles logged and times by the number DC1 did to calculate DC1 contribution and the same calc for DC2

ex post I type slow

Instead of working out mileage which is a faff. They work out cost of filling the tank then half it. So on a sunday night ( or whatever ) the tank is filled and they split it. Every week. So if one uses more one week it balances out the following week.

Dd puts £60 in on the first of the month

Ds puts £60 in on the 15th

Keep receipts

Ruby slippers has it right I think

AndTake the car is owned by the parents, so a family car but only used by the DC unless a parent is giving one of them a lift.

In that case I wouldn't let either of them drive it until they started acting like adults and sorted out the petrol fairly between them. They sound like toddlers.

They both go to the station, fill it right up and split the bill half and half. Then every week they each put £5/£10 in a jar Petrol gets paid out of the jar only. It may mean never using pay at pump and only going to places that accept cash but that is the price they pay for being so fucking childish. Any money left over in the jar is left there and get used for MOT/new tyres/car wash or whatever. There are plenty of expenses involved in driving and maintaining a car so I doubt left over money will be there long enough to be squabbled over.

Can they get a joint credit card for petrol only, make a rule that the car never goes below 1/4 of a tank, so when it hits 1/4 use the credit card to fill it to the brim and they split the monthly bill 50/50. Or by mileage if they can be bothered, although I think that is unfair too as mpg will be better for DS if he is doing the long journeys.

That way they start to build a credit history and learn to pay it off in full every month and it's always got some petrol in it.

I agree- take the car away until they can present you with a solution they have agreed together.

If they are old enough to drive, they are old enough to sort this out like adults.

Tell them it must be filled up every time it is used (or after a few trips if it is DD using it several days in a row). Or just take it off them - get them to finance their own car - they sound a bit ungrateful - have they realised dhow much it would cost to buy, maintain, tax and insure it themselves?

Could the parents charge them for the use, say £30 a week each, and have the two sharers fill up out of that kitty. Any leftovers goes towards running costs.

Filling it up each time they use it is a waste of time and impossible to police because you can go quite a long way before the needle moves so unless you start monitoring receipts/bank statements you wouldn't know if they had filled it up or not.

If the miles they do are roughly equal overall they should just split fuel costs and either take it in turns to fill up or fill up and ask the other for half the money. How do they share insurance/tax/repair costs etc?