I drive a 2015 Chevy Malibu, with about 100k miles (mostly highway miles). Usually, my family rents a car to “save miles” and “protect our car”. I’m leaning towards driving my own car to save money. Is there any reason why I shouldn’t do this, as in it would greatly decrease the longevity of my car?
Can anyone give me a summary of what I should get done to my car before taking the trip? I don’t really do much beyond routine oil changes and getting my tires changed every few years. Winter weather is a concern. Thanks!
(Truck value - residual value at 150k miles)/150k = depreciation per mile (I don’t keep them past there, and it’s fairly easy to get a residual value using kbb and a few assumptions on time till I get to 150k miles.
That comes out to 30 cents a mile…or $900 for this trip.
Maintenance costs that I calculated were mostly oil changes and tire wear, both of which I have a good understanding of the cost and life expectancy of them. I replace tires roughly every 40k miles at a cost of $1200 or $90 in tire wear for this trip.
Oil change is $100, of which I do every 5000 - 6000 miles….so $50
Lastly, the mileage difference between my vehicle and the Tahoe was 5mpg, over 3000 miles that saved me 36 gallons of gas, at $4.00 a gallon roughly at the time, or $144 in gas savings.
Totaling….just about $1200. Now there are other things that would have cost maintenance….but I’m not about to calculate the cost of every filter and fluid…so I left that all alone.
IRS gives you 65.5 cents per mile for business purposes…
Yeah, it’s probably closer to accurate, but the irs grossly overvalues miles driven in a Prius, and undervalues mileage in an F-350. It’s the best average they can calculate. It also pays the same in a $30k f-150 and a $85k f-150….so I like to roughly calculate my own.