£9 per day in Diesel or £20 per day on the Train…Spec Time

Soldato
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Hey guys

I am starting a new job in a few weeks which is going to require a 110 mile total daily commute so 550 per week + private mileage. :(

  • Price of the train fare with parking is £20 per day :eek: :eek: . A season ticket inc season parking ticket works out at £18 per day but I would have to fork out a huge amount initially. If I don’t park at the train station it saves £1.50 per day.
  • The value of the season ticket would also be lost if I have any sick days or have to go elsewhere for meetings and get a hire car for the day.
  • Now the bonus is that there is free parking provided at work and fuel in a diesel would work out roughly at £9 per day maybe £10. :D
  • The train journey all in would take 1 hour 45 mins each way vs about 1 hour for the car. So it all looks favourable for the car but there is a small problem……..

I am car less bar a old 1.4 fiesta, I have to factor in the cost of buying a car suitable for doing 30k per year without costing me an arm and a leg to run and can only really offset that against the total cost of taking the train each day. I can’t afford to buy the car so it would have to be finance.

Of course if I get a lowish mileage car with the thought of running it for 4 years i.e. a total of 120,000 miles the long term saving would be greater than the train which would cost me around £16,000 over those 4 years.

Your thoughts would be appreciated, although it seems a no brainer to go for a car due to costs and savings on travel time, I would need it to be roughly the equivalent totally monthly spend of the train inc fuel, finance servicing etc

#edit Would appreciate if someone could do some more detailed calculations on this, my head is frazzled and I can't seem to get it together or working right :(
 
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you've done them already.

Cost of car?

Well, a more expensive car now will take a bigger hit in depreciation but may be more reliable over a cheaper car which has taken its depreciation hit already.

£10 a day on diesel would see a £60 tank travel 600 miles so for most modern day diesels of the 2L TD variety your calculations are more or less spot on.

Also worth considering that you'll still have travelling time to and from either station. Whilst this may be a short walk or a 20 minutes car journey, its still extra time on the 1h45 which sees almost 4 hours of your day in travelling.

If it was me, I'd take comfort in a nice motorway cruiser with the initial financial hit, private transport, less time, and overly, less money.

Do you have an aversion to highish mileage cars?
 
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Soldato
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Butters said:
you've done them already.

Cost of car?

So say £10 in fuel leaves me with max £10 per day for buying and running the car i.e. roughly £200 per month does this look right?

200x10.5 = 2100 per year (it is multiplied by 10.5 not 12 as I am accounting for holiday where I would not be taking the train or using the car for work)
Tax = 150
Service = 500 (2 per year i guess)
Tyres = 200 (2 sets on the front?)

2000-850 = 1250 ish per year to cover the purchase cost. ~ £100pm. Is this right?
 
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OK, I've come up with this using a 3 year plan.

Car = £7500. Consider a personal loan from the bank as these are invariably cheaper than finance although you can get some very good deals. Over 3 years this is £261.86 a month with loan protection which covers you under unemployment, redundancy and death. Total amount repayable = £9426.96

Depreciation is variable but over 3 years on a diesel car you could expect the value to be around £5k.

£60 a week for a full year = £3120 although this is likley to be massively less as you wont work the full 52 weeks. Also, places like Shell offer reward points which you can use to get money off fuel and is great for high mileage drivers.

VED for a diesel I'll place at £130 a year = £390 over 3 years (could be less if you plan it right).

Servicing, tyres, MOTs, yadayayayd = £1000 / year. As a maximum I'd allow a grand for routine parts and servicing. This includes 4 x tyres once a year at £400, an MOT at £42 and servicing costs of £200 a year. This is really £642 a year but if you allow a grand you can cover yourself if anything else was to go wrong (brakes, clutch, etc). Over 3 years = £1926

So over 3 years, the train could cost a maximum of £20 a day over 340 days is £6800 a year x 3 = £20400.

Cost of car over the same period:

Loan = £9426.96
Fuel = £9360
VED = £390
Servicing = £3000

= £22176.96

plus depreciation of £2.5k

Total Car cost = £24676.96

You can obviously offset some of the value of the Fiesta here but is it worth it? Then again, can you afford to run two cars?

Although over the 3 year period the car is more expensive, and that doesnt include insurance, don't forget that if you get the train you'll probably still run a car of some sort for local & private mileage and have all the insurance, fuel, tax and servicing costs associated.

Also worth noting that I used Northern Rock for the loan quote based at 7.5%. You should be able to secure finance much cheaper than this from a dealer.
 
Caporegime
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Butters said:
Cost of car over the same period:

Loan = £9426.96
Fuel = £9360
VED = £390
Servicing = £3000

= £22176.96

plus depreciation of £2.5k

Total Car cost = £24676.96

So you have the cost of the car and then you have added depreciation to it? You planning on giving someone 2.5k and the car when you have finished with it?
 
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Simon said:
So you have the cost of the car and then you have added depreciation to it? You planning on giving someone 2.5k and the car when you have finished with it?

No, you add depreciation as thats what its costing him to own that car over 3 years. £2500
 
Soldato
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I don't need to worry about depreciation as it is offset against the fact all of the money I spend on the train fare is effectively depreciation (empty money) as I have no tangible product at the end of the 3/4 years.
 
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mrk1@1 said:
I don't need to worry about depreciation as it is offset against the fact all of the money I spend on the train fare is effectively depreciation (empty money) as I have no tangible product at the end of the 3/4 years.

This is true. Yet, worth noting depreciation here only applies if you sell the car after the 3 year model ends.

If you dont, then you are still more expensive running a car. :(
 
Soldato
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If its going to be 2.5k in depreciation so the car is going to be 5k so then wouldnt you do -5k if you sell the car so it would be

17,476

Or if you dont plan on selling the car then the depreciation doesn't really need to factor into the sum so its

22,176
 
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sanaxe1 said:
If its going to be 2.5k in depreciation so the car is going to be 5k so then wouldnt you do -5k if you sell the car so it would be

19,476

Or if you dont plan on selling the car then the depreciation doesn't really need to factor into the sum so its

22,176

See above my friend :)
 
Soldato
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Butters said:
OK, I've come up with this using a 3 year plan.

So over 3 years, the train could cost a maximum of £20 a day over 340 days is £6800 a year x 3 = £20400.

You are working the train out daily which isnt the case as I just worked out I would do 229 days of catching the train per year accounting for holidays and weekends.

So cost of train is 229x20 = £4480 (allowing for any increases)

x 3 = £13440 over 3 years and £17920 over 4 years

Cost of car over the same period:

Loan = £9426.96
Fuel = £9360
VED = £390
Servicing = £3000

= £22176.96

plus depreciation of £2.5k

Total Car cost = £24676.96

So the train does work out cheaper, no need to ad the depreciation on as it is not an issue in this case.
 
Soldato
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Get an old diesel nissan almera - not the most interesting of cars but it's bulletproof, you couldn't kill it if you tried.

Find one with high miles (preferably not much over 100k) and a full service history - if you spend over 1.5k on the car you've been mugged.

Your concerns over a 'car suitable for doing 30k a year' are unjustified, anything japanese will do it easily - look at the cars taxi drivers use.

I'd avoid fords / vauxhalls as their engines don't last forever, german cars due to expense and nissan is generally regarded as the most reliably of the jap cars.

Don't try to buy a good japanese 4 door - you'll never get to it before a taxi driver has bought it, 3 door and you will be laughing.
 
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mrk1@1 said:
You are working the train out daily which isnt the case as I just worked out I would do 229 days of catching the train per year accounting for holidays and weekends.

So cost of train is 229x20 = £4480 (allowing for any increases)

x 3 = £13440 over 3 years and £17920 over 4 years



So the train does work out cheaper, no need to ad the depreciation on as it is not an issue in this case.

The train worked out cheaper even if you did work weekends ;)
 
Caporegime
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Butters said:
No, you add depreciation as thats what its costing him to own that car over 3 years. £2500

Well for a car to deprecate he needs to sell it doesnt he :p


There is no need to factor in depreciation, even if after the 3 years the car is worth £0 then you have covered it in your sums.

It is its gonna be worth about 5k and so he will be £4k up from the calculation you have meaning the car will be £18k to run for 3years if he sells it then. If not then it will have cost him £23k with still an asset in the form of the car.
 
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Soldato
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What about a 5 year HP deal and I just hand the car back after 3 years, not a PcP but normal Hire Purchase. I get the utility of the car and altough no tangible product at the end no further costs after the 3/5 years
 
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HP sucks. The better bet is to do lease hire. brand new car which you pay £200 a month for, all the servicing and tyres are paid for and you don't have the depreciation hit at the end.

Even better if you can negotiate car allowance from your employer
 
Soldato
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Telescopi said:
Get an old diesel nissan almera - not the most interesting of cars but it's bulletproof, you couldn't kill it if you tried.

Good point only I don't find the old old ones very comfortable, but a newer shape on with moon mileage may work for me. Hadn't thought about the almeras, I had looked at the primeras.

So basically your saying buy as cheap as I can, run it into the ground and use the "disposable car model"
 
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