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August 25, 2005
Car costs 
Just for kicks and grins, I decided to get a vague idea of what the car costs per mile. Now, I'm not factoring in gas because it's been a moving target, though at current costs ($2.45 a gallon), it's 8 cents a mile—which is much less than I was expecting.
I bought my car for $12K 13 years ago. I put about 7.5K miles on a year. Let's say that the car has a lifespan of 120K, so I have 4 years left. I spend $700 a year on insurance, and $500 on maintenance (I'm sure that's not realistic, but for the sake of coming up with numbers...)
So, over the life of the car, not counting gas, the cost is $32,400. Damn! So, unbelievably, the cost per mile is 27 cents.
Huh?!?
When I bought the car, gas prices were around $1.20 a gallon -- so the cost per mile was 4 cents. If gas prices continue to rise, it would be no surprise to pay 10 cents a mile. So the real cost of driving ranges from 31-37 cents a mile. And that's conservative.
Posted at August 25, 2005
Comments
That sounds about right: last time I looked, the City of Portland was reimbursing 35 cents per mile when employees use their personal cars for work.
Posted by: grrlpup at August 25, 2005 11:14 AM