How Much Does It Cost To Drive Your Car?

Most Americans have a car with payments, fill up their tank when it gets close to empty, probably once a week or more, have routine maintenance performed, and just accept this as part of their monthly expenses. But how much does it cost to drive your car one mile? A few years ago, when gas was over $4 per gallon, I started looking at how much gas it would take to drive a mile and I figured it was $1 for 4 miles. That made me think about how badly I needed to run over to Costco or take the kids on an outing. Many of our outings ended up being to the local coffee shop a mile from our house because I rationalized that even a $5 cup of coffee was cheaper than driving anywhere else and the kids were content to play there.
Lately, I have given even more thought to the cost of driving a car. Let's do some math--you need to know that I am a former math teacher with a master's degree so doing math is tons of fun for me.
Scenario # 1--Purchase car for $40,000 with plan to drive it 100,000 miles. Without any maintenance or gas, it costs $0.40 per mile to drive your car. Over this time, you will probably put another $5000 into the car in the way of oil changes, new tires, and other maintenance. That adds $0.05 per mile so now we're at $0.45 and we haven't even been to the gas station. With average gas mileage and gas prices, it costs about $0.20 per mile for gas. Now we're at $0.65 per mile. Let's hope we don't end up in an accident and have to pay even just our deductible for repairs and we're also assuming that you never pay for a car wash or detailed cleaning. Those things could easily add another $0.10 bringing our total to $0.75 per mile. I didn't even factor the cost of auto insurance.

Scenario # 2--Purchase car for $10,000 with plan to drive 100,000 miles. All other costs being equal (which we know they aren't--the more expensive vehicle will have higher maintenance costs), the initial cost per mile is $0.10 so with gas and upkeep, the cost per mile of this car will be $0.45 per mile.

Scenario # 3--Live in an area with public transportation. Take the train or walk. Your break even point is between 4-7 miles round trip. If your commute is more than 7 miles, it is far more expensive to drive.

I know many of you are thinking: I don't pay that much for my car. I lease it or have payments. Great! Let's do some more math. Let's say you buy or lease a car with $2000 down and make monthly payments of $400 and drive 20,000 miles per year. That's $0.34 per mile plus gas, oil and tune-ups which gets you back to the $0.75 per mile and is assuming you could then sell the car for what you owe on it at the end of the year--which you won't be able to do--bringing your cost per mile closer to more than $1.00.

Now do I want everyone to stop driving? Move to the city and always take the bus or train? Not at all! I'd be a hypocrite to advocate that. I myself drive a $40,000 car and plan to drive it 150,000 miles. I just want to make you aware of where your money is going and to consider combining trips, carpooling. Remember driving 10 miles to get eggs for $0.99 costs $7.50 plus the cost of the eggs. Just make sure your "saving" makes $en$e.