How much do people spend on cars?

EvilRob

EvilRob

EvilRob

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15 Jan 2011
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What do you think is a reasonable percentage of annual income to spend on a car? I'm talking about annual depreciation + maintenance & servicing costs or annual lease/hp financing costs.

Of course, this may vary significantly from person to person depending on their financial commitments and how important running a nice car is to them. But I'm interested to see what others spend.

I've been running a 2007 Mondeo Titanium X 2.5T for the last couple of years, and depreciation + running costs has only cost me under 2% of gross income per year. I'm getting sorely tempted to change for something newer and more powerful but I think I'd have to spend a lot more money to top the Mondeo.
 
drive a 14 year old E39, having a new car does not interest me, the depreciation just kills it for me, driving around in a car on tick and thinking i am ace does not appeal to me.
 
I drive a 25 year old Golf and It's forever breaking down, it's incredibly bad on fuel, it constantly needs something but I love it to bits. I spend probably 1/3 my wages each month on parts to keep it going.

I'm part time at Halfords (no halfords parts get fitted, she deserves more than that) on a terrible wage.

It's fast, fun to drive and I smile from ear to ear whenever I drive her. At the moment she's broken and I still smile when I look out of the window at her :D
 
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All in my leased Audi A3 costs me about £240 a month.

Which is about 45% of my monthly income now that I'm stuck doing another apprenticeship.

It's slow, fairly boring to drive (the reason I originally bought it was doing 800 miles a week) and constantly sounds like it's going to rattle itself to pieces.

It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't constantly in the garage.
 
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2016 Toyota Tacoma, 14% of my monthly income on the payments for it.

Costs me nothing in maintenance, also isn't really depreciating by much as the demand is pretty high
 
Antony101 said:
All in my leased Audi A3 costs me about £240 a month.

Which is about 45% of my monthly income now that I'm stuck doing another apprenticeship.

It's slow, fairly boring to drive (the reason I originally bought it was doing 800 miles a week) and constantly sounds like it's going to rattle itself to pieces.

It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't constantly in the garage.
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Eh? You got a lease when you were doing 40k miles a year, and now still have it when your only earning £500 a month?
 
My last car cost me about 6% of my gross pay per year over its 3 year ownership, that includes depreciation, ved, insurance, servicing, tyres etc.
 
Skeeter said:
Eh? You got a lease when you were doing 40k miles a year, and now still have it when your only earning £500 a month?
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I used to do a physical job that required a lot of travel, I've since had issues with my ankle and can no longer spend long periods of time on my feet. This has caused me to get a job in an office, I've basically had to start from scratch as getting a job without any prior experience isn't easy.
 
The excess mileage charges on a lease like that must be absolutely insane :confused:

Surely you are due a huge bill when it goes back as an A3 for £240 a month is almost certainly a 5k PA deal?
 
[TW]Fox;29758781 said:
The excess mileage charges on a lease like that must be absolutely insane :confused:

Surely you are due a huge bill when it goes back as an A3 for £240 a month is almost certainly a 5k PA deal?
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I didn't use the A3 for too long in that job so didn't actually end up doing too many miles in it. I also made sure I saved money from my fuel expenses to pay for the mileage.
 
I've been driving for 41 years and only had 6 cars.
I've never sold a car on because they all get driven to the breakers yard.
Besides car tax, insurance and MOT I spend about £100 a year getting them through the MOT.
The last bill was £50 and funnily enough it's only been welding the last 3 MOTs.
 
Dogbreath said:
What do you include as running costs e.g. fuel, insurance, tax?
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Good points. I've not included any of those in my calculations, but I guess I should include insurance and VED for a good comparison. Fuel I wouldn't include as vast majority of my miles are for work so get mileage.

I meant maintenance + servicing when I said running costs in my post.
 
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I drive an old Mx5.
For everthing I spend on the car it's about 10%
Including tax insurance mot and the cars cost itself (split over the years I've owned it)

I'm pretty happy with that.

Mx5 is fun and cheaper than a new boring econobox.
 
2005 Mondeo, cost about £2400 2.5years ago. Put 40+k on it and only spent on CV Joint/Driveshaft, tyres, brakes, and replaced a split hose.

So I figure its cost me a few hundred a year.
 
2001 Ford Focus. Does 40+mpg, costs me naff all to run, rarely gets cleaned. paid nearly £3k about 8 years ago and it's damaged as it wrote off a car so it's not worth anything lol. Perfect.
 
Antony101 said:
All in my leased Audi A3 costs me about £240 a month.

Which is about 45% of my monthly income now that I'm stuck doing another apprenticeship.

It's slow, fairly boring to drive (the reason I originally bought it was doing 800 miles a week) and constantly sounds like it's going to rattle itself to pieces.

It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't constantly in the garage.
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Are you mad? :confused:
 
Think I'm in the 7% region if only including my own car but closer to 10% average for our two cars (excluding fuel as above)

Doesn't feel stretched, but I also wouldn't be comfortable spending much more of our disposable income on cars either. Especially for the other half who couldn't care less about hers
 
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