I just spent over £90 filling my car.

[Fat Tone]

66l, £1.329 per litre of diesel.

That was the cheapest around. 5 minutes later I saw 1.369.

And there's talk of it going higher due to all the trouble in Libya etc.

I don't use my car frivolously. I have an 80mile round-trip to my office, which I do once or twice a week. Even at an average of over 45mpg (imperial) it's starting to sting.

[Evildead666]

I am with you.
Over here 98 octane unleaded has hit been just under 1.5euro/litre for a little while.
Thats about £1.26/litre.

At least you don't do 10l/100km no matter how careful you drive.

i know diesel is more expensive than petrol over there, thats a massive downer.

PS. I only half fill it atm, since the prices fluctuate, and I might pass somewhere cheaper.

[Brian Ellis]

Yesterday, my gauge showed less than empty and I filled up for €49 (a tad over 40 l). This would be good for ~750 km of mixed urban/highway driving, Each km therefore costs me about €0.065 in fuel.

Taking your figures, I calculate your fuel cost to be about €0.103/km (rounded conversion figures), about 58% higher than mine, and that ain't bad.

Now add together what it costs you in a year for:
- road tax
- insurance
- services, mechanical repairs incl. oil
- get-you-home (AA, RAC whatever)
- tyres
- bodywork maintenance (washes, retouches)
- fines or, heaven forbid, "coffee money" to police
- garaging and parking
- antifreeze and pre-/post-winter protection.

Now divide this sum by the no. of km run per year.

Am I not correct in surmising that €0.103/km appears almost totally negligible, 15 or 20% at the most?

[Fat Tone]

I do ~12,000miles/year.

road tax: £165
insurance: £240
Services, inc tryes: £160 (no main-dealer rip-offs for me)
AA: £50
bodywork: nil. Say £50 for sake of argument.
fines: nil. Say £10 averaging the very few tickets I've had
garaging/parking: £50 (I generally park and walk etc)
antifreeze: £10

So that's £835/yr.
Fuel is (at current prices) £1600/yr

So thats 2/3rds!!!

Having said that, I'm still paying £300/month in car payments. I have another 10 payments. The car cost £14k and I usually keep them at least 7 years, by which point they are worth very little. Say that costs £2k per year on average. £1600 out of £2800 is still 36%.

Not that long ago fuel was over 30% less.

[TransformX]

I drive a Mazda 6, doing an average of 10km/l for around €1.40/l (unleaded 95 octane).
I drive around 52km/day (taking my son to the kindergarten, then driving myself to work and back).
This means I spend only on this around €160 per month, or €2,000 per year.
That's about as much if not more than what I spend on Brian's list. It's certainly putting a dent in my budget.

Please note it doesn't include driving during the weekend or for other reasons.

[Dr Mordrid]

Dodge Grand Caravan 3.3l V6 flex fuel

Gas: $2.95/gallon
E-85: $2.49/gallon ($1.80 if I make it)
I drive <100 miles/week, 65 of those going to the wound clinic, and get an average of 22 mpg.

[Mehen]

I get about 12-13mpg in my '93 Taurus 3.8L in the winter. I probably spend more time warming it up than driving it. I get about 19mpg in the summer.
However, my running costs are still low, $800/yr for insurance, basically no maintenance, just a couple oil changes.
I'm tempted to get something new and fuel efficient, but my insurance would be double, and then there is the cost of actually buying the thing. It is cheaper for me to just drive my gas guzzler until it breaks.

Interesting fact: "According to Environment Canada, Winnipeg is the coldest city in the world with a population of over 600,000 based on the average night-time temperature during December, January and February, inclusive."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_and_climate_of_Winnipeg

[Dr Mordrid]

My insurance runs about $60/month, $720/year with a $500 collision deductable that I only pay if it's my fault.

[Evildead666]

Just recalculated in mpg for my '99 Ford Mondeo 2.5L V6 Duratec DOHC 24V:

10L/100km = 23.5mpg

My '89 Passat 1.8L does about 8L/100km so ~ 29.4mpg.

Dr, you're getting some good gas mileage then from an Auto 3.3L V6 ~ 10.7L/100km.

Mehen, thats 12.4L/100km summer and a bad of 19.3L/100km in winter.
Thank god your fuel is cheaper than over here

Still, not as bad as my Bro's bright orange (same as general lee colour) '69 GTO that goes out very infrequently, 50-100L/100Km ~ 4.7-2.3mpg!!!
It does have a 6.6L smallblock tho, and about 5-600bhp. (ex Pro-Stock).

I flogged my Clio 1.9D to the parents, and that only does 5-6L/100km ~ 39-47mpg.

Fat Tone, what car have you got ?

[Fat Tone]

Mine's a Ford Mondeo MK 4 Estate, 1.8TDCi Zetec, from 2007. As a family car I couldn't ask for more. If I use it exclusively on the Motorway at sensible speeds it's a little over 50mpg. Published figures are 60mpg. Trouble is as soon as you start doing 'real' mileage, shopping, taking kids to various clubs, traffic jams, putting your toe down a little, it drops off significantly.

[UtwigMU]

I avoided having a car and preferred to blow 2000 euros a year on travels instead. I was able to do that because I lived in center and work was 15 minutes bike / 25 minutes bus ride away and everything else was 10 minutes walk away. But car is slowly becoming a business necessity.

I'm not a tree huggin' hippie, it's for financial reasons. A car would add minimum 200 EUR fixed monthly cost without fuel and with my lifestyle I never spent more than 200 EUR for transport a month (bike, bus, cab, trains) even if I took occasional cab to work (bad weather, late) or partying. Also majority of country is not like that, most people live in country and commute 70-15km one way to work and drive out to country or malls on weekends, public transport is very crappy outside capital and so-so in capital (13km/h average speed for getting from A to B by bus in rush hour).

I do more than 1000 km a year on a bicycle and even the puny bike costs ~100 EUR / year to service. Also add about 100 EUR / year for fines (some bike some driving work car).

[Dr Mordrid]

>
Dr, you're getting some good gas mileage then from an Auto 3.3L V6 ~ 10.7L/100km.
>

It's had its bouts of low mileage, but changing the oxygen sensor, upgrading the trannys firmware and re-training it did the trick; most Chrysler tranny comps "learn" how you drive and adjust shift points etc. to match. Picked up the mpg that had been "lost", and then some.

It also helps that our freeways are seldom crowded unless there's an accident, so I can just drop it into cruise control and let 'er run 55-60 mph cross-town.

[gt40]

Meh, 130 litre tanks on two of my vehicles. You do the math.
And Mehen, even my Navigator does 17l /100 in the winter. You need to get that thing looked at.

[Elie]

I pay about $85 every week or 8 days of driving. and I have a BMW 528i with a 2.8 liter inline 6. it has a 70 liter tank.
I am glad I chose it over a 540i.

[Kruzin]

Guess I'm lucky...gas here is the cheapest in the nation, as there are many refineries nearby.
Gas is "only" $2.65-2.70/gallon here.

And I live less than 2 miles from where I work, and my gal works at the same place, so we carpool.

My gas guzzling Jeep goes 2 weeks on 20 bucks...and her Taurus goes much longer, since it's parked most of the time.
The Ford is a 'Flex Fuel' car....not that that helps here...there is not a single E-85 station anywhere near here. This town's nickname is 'the OIL city', so I guess that's so surprise....

I suppose it would be better if we drove her Ford daily...but I love my lifted, loud cherry bomb V8 too much to leave it parked