8 Hidden Costs Of Car Ownership That Nobody Talks About
It all started with 200 large golden pretzels. Freshly baked delicious treats planned for a corporate event.
But there was a problem; the pretzels needed to be collected at a location 45 minutes away from the office and they didn’t offer delivery. The folks at work knew that as part of my commute I would be within close proximity of the bakery. So, could I do them a favour and swing by on my way in? Easy. Sure thing.
The collection process was painless. Trays of pretzels filled my car, still warm, their smell was intoxicating.
I started to weave my way through the nest of unfamiliar suburban backstreets, navigating by the sun, attempting to once again find the main road that would lead me to the office. The office would cheer as I arrived. I’d be a hero.
Blue lights began to flash in my rearview mirror. Police.
Somewhere amongst the nest of suburban backstreets I hadn’t noticed a “no right turn” sign.
Collecting those pretzels had now personally cost me $200 and points on my driving licence.
Now bitter, all I could think of was that none of this would have happened if I just took the bus to work.
We all know the common items that are discussed when determining the costs of car ownership.
You’ll initially pay for the car itself, or maybe instead calculate the lease payments or depreciation. Then there will be regular servicing, registration, insurance, petrol (gas). The list is already quite extensive.
But then there is a second layer, a layer which many people never consider. The hidden costs.
We’ll take a dive into this mysterious second layer of costs. Maybe it will help to explain where all of your money is going!
Fines
Fines will come at unexpected times. Some may drive for their life without one. Others may get a few within only a couple of weeks. While largely controllable by the driver, we all have our brain-snap moments. I never expected that my commute to work via the bakery would result in a fine. I wasn’t driving recklessly. I was in an unfamiliar area.
That $200 fine alone would pay for a month or two of public transport tickets.
Accidents & Insurance Excess
Just like fines, the requirement to pay insurance excess can also come up at any time. And also like fines, you can never have complete control over them. You may return to your parked car in the carpark and find that someone has reversed straight into you, causing thousands of dollars of damage. The culprit is nowhere in sight, so now you are left paying a $1000 insurance excess.
When smaller levels of damage occur it isn’t even worth going through insurance, so instead it might be a few hundred dollars cash to pay for the repair in full.
A car is a liability. Things can, and do, happen.
Cleaning
Everyone loves a clean car. Sure, you could get away without cleaning it, but a car which isn’t maintained will depreciate in value faster.
Take your car to the car wash and be up for $15 or more each time, or do you wash it yourself? Washing it yourself is often the cheaper option in the long run, but it will still require a hose, buckets, sponges or wash mits, towels for drying and liquid car wash. Even washing a car yourself to save money can quickly turn into a false economy if you dive down the car detailing rabbit hole of expensive specialist products and techniques.
Want to keep the tyres looking great? Better buy some tyre black spray. Then a bottle of cream to keep the dark plastics looking at their best. Have you got a vacuum yet? You’ll need one of those for inside.
Don’t forget the full polish it should get every year or two as well.
Car Storage
When you own a car there are different considerations to be made when determining housing. If you are far out in the suburbs then this isn’t likely a problem, but for many city areas finding a property with suitable parking can be expensive. We’re not just talking New York City ridiculous prices here either, filtering your property searches to only those with off-street parking both limits the possibilities of the area you can live and often can increase the amounts you will need to pay by 20% or more. Garages aren’t cheap.
The other type of car storage that we may wish to think about is general parking as you are out and about. Sure, it’s great that you can drive straight to your destination, but if it is in a busy city area you will likely also need to pay for parking. $10 or $20 here and there can often be the equivalent cost, or more, of taking public transport.
Driving Licence
You’re going to need a driving licence. A few hundred dollars should cover it for a decade of driving.
We also have the hidden layer underneath. You can’t just turn up and get that licence. Where are your lessons going to come from? Someone is paying for those too, either in the form of cash payments to a driving school, or in the running costs of a car.
Car Accessories & Styling
One thing that I wasn’t prepared for when I bought a house was how many “little” things I ended up buying every time I went shopping. Inconsequential things, like spare toilet roll holders or a welcome mat. Things that I needed to make the house feel complete, yet would need to be replaced again in a few years and added nothing to the capital value of the house.
Cars are the same.
Little “gifts for your car” just seem to happen. It might be the fluffy dice hanging from the rearview mirror or a new set of floor mats. On the practical side it would be beneficial to have a set of jumper cables, maybe a battery charger and a basic toolkit.
This whole lot of little things will slowly trickle out of your wallet. You’ll likely not even notice.
Your Time
A car is a liability, they take a lot of time to maintain. And “time is money”.
- Washing and vacuuming the car
- Taking it for regular maintenance
- Arranging insurance and registration annually
- Organising repairs in the event of an accident
- Learning to drive
Even just filling up your car with petrol. Let’s imagine that you spend 10 minutes a week doing that. That’s 520 minutes per year, or 8.5 hours. That’s one full working day per year spent on the trivial task of filling up the car with petrol.
Small repeatable tasks, and costs, balloon into significant amounts over time.
Stress
I did the “driving commute” thing for most of my adult life. I’d queue up the podcasts and zone out. Well, zone out as much as possible while still paying very close attention to all of the other vehicles on the road. Making sure that the pedestrian wasn’t going to step out straight in front of me, but ready just in case they did. Pressing on the horn gently when idiots decided to merge without looking.
When I am on the bus I can close my eyes and daydream.
I don’t need to worry about the possibility of hitting the car in front, which would result in days or weeks wasted spent dealing with insurance companies and repairers. I’ve been there before, waking up in the middle of the night and not remembering if the accident was real or just a dream.
When on the bus I don’t need to worry about making sure that I turn down the correct street. It’s not up to me to make sure that I am in the correct lane early.
When I arrive at my destination I don’t have to circle a carpark looking for a spot, panicking when there is nothing at all available and need to consider alternative parking options. I get off the bus, at my bus stop, exactly where I expected to get off.
Cars can be stressful.
Is There A Solution?
When I go to the office these days I take the bus. In fact, I thought out most of this story while sitting on a bus, staring down as we passed a vehicle which had been pulled over by the police. It brought back bad memories.
I’m not anti-car by any means, quite the opposite in fact. I am the type of person who will happily talk cars for hours on end. I love my car. I have no intention of selling it.
There is a flip side to many of the anti-car arguments. You have complete control over when you travel, who you travel with, the specific start and end destinations.
Public transport doesn’t go everywhere that I need. But I sure wish that it did.
A truly autonomous self-driving on-demand car rental system would potentially provide the best of both worlds. Wholesaling the purchase and maintenance costs, also eliminating many of the time and stress considerations. But this kind of system would also come almost definitely at a much higher price than public transport.
Back to the drawing board.
And for the record, the pretzels were delicious. But no pretzel is worth $200.
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