Even More Reason I Hate Owning (and Paying) for Cars
My first car was a manual 1991 Honda Civic 4-door-deathtrap, but it worked remarkably well and clocked in around 40mpg. The body gave out before the motor and I squeezed about 160,000 miles out of it before I was at the point when rust covered a greater portion of the body than paint. Thus, my rocky relationship with all things automotive began.
I'm not a "car" guy, nor am I "handy" in any sense of the word. If there is one thing I hate more than paying money to fix a car it is paying a shop or dealership to fix my car where I can have the pleasure of getting talked down to and screwed out of large sums of money all at the same time. The Digerati Life has a nice article on the true costs of automobile ownership. It adds up a whole lot faster than you might think and that isn't including gas.
The main things I got out of the article I guess weren't the focus of the post - but were interesting to me never the less.
- Mazda has the lowest total cost of ownership compared to other major car manufacturers at least for minivans.
- The total cost of maintaining your vehicle will run you about twice the cost you paid for it. Does this sound like a 30 year mortgage to anyone else? At least you can have some equity when things are said and done if you choose the house & write some of the interest off.
Do You Really Know How Much It Costs To Own Your Car?
