[DML] Re: Results of Daily Driver Cost Poll

["Grimsrud, Knut S" <knut.s.grimsrud@xxxx>]

> 20 daily driver owners responded to the poll, a good turnout! Super
> Tuesday seems like a great day to announce the results, so here is the
> poll data for the cost of repairs & maintenance
> for FIVE YEARS of daily driving:

$1,000 or less |
c $1,000 - $2,000 | X X X X
o $2,001 - $4,000 | X X
s $4,001 - $6,000 | X
t $6,001 - $8,000 | X X X X X
$8,001 - $10,000 | X X X X X
$10,000 - $12,000 |
over $12,000 | X X X


Mike highlights some interesting results with this survey. As a daily driver
owner that has meticulously kept track of expenses (Quicken is great for
this), I thought I might share some additional experiences and insights on
cost of ownership. In my case, I have a manual transmission car, and my
comments are with a manual transmission car assumed.

For a daily driver, I expect that about 10,000 miles driven annually might
be fairly representative (I put a little more than this on my car, but I
believe the insurance companies assume something close to 10K miles per
year). In 5 years this is 50,000 miles worth of usage. I'm surprised that
some respondents indicate they have had costs as low as 1-2 thousand
dollars. Consider the following:

In 50K miles you'll go through about 2 sets of tires. The popular Yokahama's
cost about $100 for each rear tire and about $70 for each front tire (check
out the Tire Rack for pricing info). Including shipping and mounting this is
roughly $400 per set of tires and two sets in the 50K miles.

Tires	$800

Assuming you change your oil every 3000 miles (which you should) you'll go
through 17 oil changes. For a cheap oil change you'll pay about $25 and
probably a bit more because of the nature of the service and the increased
oil capacity of the DMC (if you change it yourself it costs you much less,
put you have to add in the cost of the shirt you ruin in the process).

Oil changes	$425

In about 50K miles of usage, you'll have at least one major 30K mile service
(which includes valve adjustment, new plugs, cap rotor, wires, etc). I don't
remeber the expected cost of this, but my gut feel is that it's a couple
hundred dollars including all the various nick-nacks that usually get fixed
as part of a major tuneup.

30K service and tuneup $250

In about 50K miles of usage, you'll go through about one clutch. The cost of
the Centerfore clutch and throwout bearing kit can readily be checked with
the online sources, but it's probably a couple hundred bucks total for
material costs. I last had my clutch chaged quite a while ago (I'm about
ready for my next one), but my recollection is that with the need to loosten
the transmission and the hooplah for getting the clutch installed by
jostling the transmission around that it was a couple hundred bucks plus the
cost of the clutch compments themselves.

One clutch change $500

My back of the envelope estimate yields about $2000 just for handling all
the scheduled service and wearable items on the car and assuming that
nothing needs repair on the car during the 5 years and 50,000 miles of
usage. The cost estimates on the low end seem very optimistic, and my
experience was that I'm in around the $8000 range over the last 5 years.

Knut