Own vs Rent a car - have you crunched the numbers?

Forums › Transport (cars, bikes and boats) › Own vs Rent a car - have you crunched the numbers?

1 | 2

Edwood

218 posts

Master Geek

#2286824 31-Jul-2019 20:10

phrozenpenguin:

Are you happy to share how you get anywhere near that number - is parking the main bulk of it?

...

Yup, I'll post my numbers when I get home.

From memory the two biggies were "Cost of money" and "Parking" which is actually an opportunity cost because I pay for the car park regardless, but I can rent it out if I'm not using it - I assumed 75% occupancy at a conservative rate. I really wanted to leave this out of my initial calcs - it doesn't apply to most people, and I'd rather not depend on it anyway.

I did not take into account "Fuel", which I should, somehow, because at least some of the rental services we're talking about include fuel in their costs! (ie. Uber, CarHop)

I did not take into account depreciation, and clearly should.

Cost of money is a very real cost. For me it's 'real' because I have lots of (positive) debt. No matter how you manage your $ though, it is at least an opportunity cost. I think I used 4% of the capital value of the car.

I also considered an upgraded rental insurance (lower excess) in some of my comparisons. Personally, this is more likely to be a risk factor than an immediate financial one... I'm not really sure... I've probably only made 1 car insurance claim in my life, but I often take the 'no excess' option with rentals to make it easy.

edit: the convenience factor is a real thing. I think I leave that out of the mathematics and ask myself how much I'm willing to pay for convenience at the end of the day.

The other factor that is very real is the psycological barrier to going anywhere to do anything! We went out for 4 hours or so on Sunday for lunch - that would have cost me ~$100 if I used Uber and maybe more with a sharing service. The direct costs associated with going out are suddenly front & center.

Edwood

218 posts

Master Geek

#2286844 31-Jul-2019 21:05

OK here's the numbers I used to calculate the cost of owning my car.

Some factors discussed above.

I just looked at 2 online car depreciation calculators - both used 15.5% for my car. So I've added 15.5% depreciation.

I still haven't calculated fuel, my parking opportunity cost is very conservative, and this tells me that my car is costing me over $6,700 annually!

I'm being pulled into the rental economy! It feels very weird...

(I blame CrashAndBurn)

Car Value: 15,000

Cost of $: $675

Depreciation: $2325

Insurance: 568

Rego: $256

Warrant: $55

Servicing & Maintenance: $750

Tyres: $200

Car Parking opp. Cost: $1950

Total: $6779

edit: Table went septic, had to manually write the numbers

freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
79316 posts

Uber Geek

Administrator

ID Verified

Trusted

Geekzone

Lifetime subscriber

#2286855 31-Jul-2019 22:04

@Edwood - you don't mention fuel in this list... Is it intentional?

darylblake

1162 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2286858 31-Jul-2019 22:16

I know people in your situation who have an apartment in the city with a car and a car park but they HARDLY ever use it.

You might even be better off renting out your car park to someone flipping the car, (as they depreciate), and just borrow a car when necessary.

Uber if you need to. Scooter if you need to.

It really depends how often you find yourself using the car.

phrozenpenguin

842 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2286874 31-Jul-2019 23:03

Thanks that makes some interesting reading.

I was assuming you paid for fuel either way e.g. in your vehicle or in a rental (I guess different to Uber). Have never used CityHop, not being based in Auckland.

I hadn't included depreciation and was doing a more simplistic calculation. E.g. sell your $15k car, gives you 15x years of $1k/year transport (perhaps interest would offset price increases).

In response to @alasta and your comment re "Some of the figures that people are throwing around here reinforce my long standing suspicion that most people grossly under-report the cost of car ownership" - just playing a bit of devils advocate. My car is worth about your depreciation for a year - perhaps why depreciation didn't even factor into my calcs. So if I treat my car as a sunk cost, my outgoings are just the cash costs to keep it on the road. If I sold the car, for example for the $8k of your depreciation, that would give me 80 days of $100/day hire car - which is less than just using it at the weekend for a year.

Happy to listen and learn. For what its worth, I'm not "pro-car". I cycle most places (including to work and if I don't need a car to put things in) and think if the OP really does that little driving and lives downtown then having no car is a very real option.

CrashAndBurn

670 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2286893 1-Aug-2019 05:31

@Edwood I dont normally suggest ditching the car as I know a lot of people that it is not an option. But given your situation is very similar to me e.g. live and work in the CBD, then you will definitely see the savings. The deciding factor for me was paying for parking in CBD which makes me wonder as you listed it as $1950? That is $37.50 pw in CBD? If this is correct then that will be the cheapest that I know of.

Edwood

218 posts

Master Geek

#2286894 1-Aug-2019 05:50

Once a post goes beyond a couple of pages, very few people read it from start to finish... I should remember that!

I'll try and be a good lad and summarise when we're more-or-less done.

FUEL

A few people mentioning fuel, so...

I didn't include fuel in my calcs because

- It's highly variable and specific to my specific usage

- I was lazy / trying to keep it simple / taking shortcuts...

- I'm not sure how many of the car sharing services include fuel in their costs (Rentals don't, Carhop does, Yourdivre don't, Mevo does, Uber does...)

- Too-hard-basket

However... I'm now using Google Location history to gross error check my car usage. I can probably also use car service history to do the same thing... but that requires calling the car service people and apparently Winger don't 'do' email!

I can see I'm going to end up making the calculator I was hoping one of you bright sparks would give me... I'll stick it on the google at some point and find a contributor :)

Sharesies

Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).

jarledb

Webhead
3263 posts

Uber Geek

Moderator

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2286895 1-Aug-2019 06:39

Edwood:

However... I'm now using Google Location history to gross error check my car usage. I can probably also use car service history to do the same thing... but that requires calling the car service people and apparently Winger don't 'do' email!

You can find the KMs that your car has done between WOFs on Carjam.

Jarle Dahl Bergersen | Referral Links: Want $50 off when you join Octopus Energy? Use this referral code
Are you happy with what you get from Geekzone? Please consider supporting us by making a donation or subscribing.

Edwood

218 posts

Master Geek

#2286901 1-Aug-2019 07:35

Legend. Thx @jarledb Seems I am almost due for a new WOF.

I've just finished wading through my google timeline history for the last 4 months.

Quick summary;

My total car cost for the last 4 months is ~$1,800.

If I did exactly the same trips but used uber/cityhop and hired a Tesla Model S for the overnight we did in Tauranga, I would have spent $440.

Aye Corumba! ...I need to get out more!

CrashAndBurn:

...The deciding factor for me was paying for parking in CBD which makes me wonder as you listed it as $1950? That is $37.50 pw in CBD? If this is correct then that will be the cheapest that I know of.

Yeah, I used $50/week @ 75% occupancy. I know I can get a lot more, but I a) didn't want to rely on it and b) know it will skew the numbers quite a lot.

I also stumbled across this old car ownership costs thing from the AA which is kinda helpful. I've added to my list of links for the summary I'll inevitably write.

Nate001

647 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2286911 1-Aug-2019 08:10

It would be interesting to see at what point owning the car becomes more economical in your case. I know in my case the opportunity cost of the car park is the biggest, going rate in our building is $70-80/wk with occupancy ~80%, so looking at around $3k.

Mentally you will need to get over the *added* cost of each outing even though you are actually saving in the long run. You don't want to find yourself not doing something because the uber will cost $x.

Edwood

218 posts

Master Geek

#2294139 11-Aug-2019 13:39

I'm a big fan of summarising threads / posting answers etc, and said I'd do it so here's the deal...

I'm just a sample of one, your mileage may vary, but I'll save $4,000 a year by selling my car and using a combination of Uber/Cityhop/Yoogo for my carring needs.

I have relatively low usage, I live in the CBD with a car park that I can rent out.

The reason this works for me is because I don't drive to work and I only need a car a couple of times during any given week, and then for trips around the country.

I've tidied up my spreadsheet and notes and stuck it on the google here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1smLK7i4MAH0hv_-MXT6jdUXWAf4EaBjxS0B2pjHk5Mk/edit#gid=790404894

You're welcome to use it/abuse/whatever... I've included a fully editable tab so you can mess with it to your hearts content. If you do, it would be ideal to make a working copy of the tab eg. "JohnsTab", and fill your boots there...

1 | 2