Calculating the dollar value of car usage

[FireFox31]

How can we calculate the dollar value of using our cars? Is there a specific number of dollars per miles driven?

We pay to purchase, maintain, insure, and put gas in the car. We lose value through the car's depreciation. We spend our time maintaining the car, which can be assigned a value. Do you simply add up all of those costs and divide by miles driven to determine the cost per mile?

Then there are more difficult costs to determine like enjoyment, utility (hauling things), driving other people. Even less tangible costs include the value of safety and reliability.

I ask because I shoveled a ton of money into my 2000 V70 to rehabilitate it. Now I wonder how many miles would I have to drive to get enough value to make it a typical cost of ownership. And if I had to sell it, what's a fair price which subtracts the value I got from the parts/labor costs of the rehabilitation.

[abscate]

Top level guidance...


The Federal government reimbursement rate for car usage is 62.5 cents per mile. That is if an employee uses her/ his car for work, I can pay them that and it is not-taxable

Very roughly,

10-15 cents per mile gas oil tires
20 cents per mile repairs maintenance
30 cents per mile depreciation

We generally drive fully depreciated cars here. If you can get your sunk cost back at 30 cents per mile, you’ve done well, even 20 cents per mile is pretty good.

The Kat
Probably $500 in parts and acquisition cost
60 hours refurbishment at $30 DIY , 1800

Total $2300

If I can drive it for 12 000 miles it would be pretty darn economical

Don’t ever calculate the future value of a new car purchase. We spent 28k for out T5 almost new in 2000. If I charged the full depreciation against the market value of that money today, I would leap off a building into a pilot P80s seats

[abscate]

ok, are all the children hidden?

$28000 invested in the SP500 in 2000 at 1320 is now worth $101,000

So the T5 'cost us' 40 cents per mile in lost money value

[abscate]

On that depreciation number…

That 28k wagon would cost me 56k to replace today in kind. Neglecting the runner value of 1500, that shows that my cost per mile to replace is

56,00000cents / 250,000 miles = 22.4 cents per mile or about half the cost of the money value calculation.

These are measuring different things m and also not taking into account that a cents per mile calculation doesn’t account for appreciating cents….small over short term, significant over 20 years

[BlackBart]

I also wonder if all the cold dollar value calcs don't take into account the value of the usefulness of this tool, whether to go on trips, to visit children, to haul big things, etc. One could theoretically calc the cost of renting something to do all those tasks, and contrast that to the loss in value.

[abscate]

Of course, you generally need a car to get to work, which enables a salary. That’s kind of important.

If you compare the T5 purchase to leading three cars on 7 year leases 3x, I bet the numbers are astronomical. No wonder the auto industry wants to lease cars.

[abscate]

I’ve just hit 5000 miles on the Kat and 3000 have been for client travel. I’ve billed $1800 in miles cost to clients, so it’s paying back very well. I think I could easily get $2000 for her as a well running turbo loaded S70.

[abscate]

Even with a $500 bill for repairing a broken fuel line away from home I’m still way ahead of the game with the Kat. Driving her as helped me support three clients paying $350 an hour , so she enables something like $6 per mile income, $12 per mile in NYC