tl;dr: Cost of owning my 2002 Subaru Legacy over past 7.5 years in upstate NY and Boston: $32,485.74 or $4380.10 per year or $0.406/mile (doing zero work myself)
Inspired by two recent posts - Corolla TCO and Altima TCO, I did a rough calculation of the total cost of ownership on my 2002 Subaru Legacy L wagon.
I purchased it used in summer 2008 and have used the Fuelly app since September 2010 to track every fuel, service, and inspection fee. Costs are since then, 7 years and 5 months. It has 133,000 miles on it now. I know nothing about cars and did no work myself (other than change the occasional windshield wiper). I followed the maintenance schedule in the owner's manual fairly closely.
- Purchase price: $8500 (cash, one previous owner)
- KBB private party value right now: approximately $2000 in the condition it is in
- For TCO, I therefore call it $6500 in depreciation
Fuel: I tracked all 254 fill-ups with the Fuelly app.
- Total gas used: 3206 gallons
- Total cost: $10,810.71
- Avg $/gal: $3.37 (NY and MA, where gas is expensive)
- Avg mpg: 25.1 mpg
Maintenance, Insurance, Inspections, Excise Tax: All work was done in mechanics' shops. This includes new brakes and tires as needed. Some repairs were random one-offs (e.g., $211.44 to replace a side mirror that was knocked off; $171.57 to replace the hood latch), but like many Subaru owners, I faced expensive repairs for the exhaust system and leaking head gaskets. I broke those out to give a sense of costs.
- Total service costs: $9909.20 (including registration)
- Exhaust components (included in total service costs): $3556.56 (e.g., replaced at various points the O2 sensors, catalytic converter, muffler, intermediate pipe)
- Head gasket repair (included in total service costs): $1201.41
Insurance: Average $710 per year. This could have been cheaper since I carry collision, comprehensive, and zero deductible glass repair (yes, I know those do not make much financial sense with a car with value of $2k...I will change that...).
Overall, my total cost of ownership has been $32,485.74 over 7 years and 5 months, or an average of $4380.10 per year and $0.406 per mile
Interesting, the fuel cost per mile ($0.135) is almost exactly 33% of the total cost of ownership.
Edit: These numbers do not include EZPass tolls or the once-per-year car wash.
Submitted January 27, 2018 at 06:38PM by wanton_and_senseless http://ift.tt/2rNEZQo
