Driving Costs Hit Six-Year Low, Finds AAA

[Gardenarian]

WHich just encourages people to drive more. Carbon tax NOW!

[Williamsmith]

WHich just encourages people to drive more. Carbon tax NOW!

Nothing says those who are worried about the earth and climate change can't volunteer to pay more taxes. I guess they aren't THAT worried yet.

[dmc]

I invested in oil related stocks when oil dropped down to $30 a barrel. So when the price of oil goes up the value of my stock does to. If oil drops below $30 then they are worth less, but so is fuel. So I'm somewhat covered either way.

[ToomuchStuff]

While my last vehicle was a gift, (used, at 100K miles), you all still assume one must buy new. I never have bought new, and my last used vehilce was $1100 and I ran it for 11 years. Vehicles can and do go over 100K and I have one person I know, who wouldn't buy a vehicle until it hit 100k and then drove them to 300K or someone totaled it.
Speaking of the carbon tax issue, doesn't buying used, just reuse already spent resources, instead of new?

[Gardnr]

Well I disagree wholeheartedly. INCLUDING the purchase of a brand new Xterra in 2010 (cash), our average annual cost of running 2 vehicles is $10337 and that's from Jan 1 2010. That is all inclusive.....service, parts, oil change, fluid change, light bulbs, the works and this includes full service. We no longer do this ourselves.

Our cost of running 2 cars since Jan 1 2012 is $475/m or $5696/yr.

Always full coverage insurance.

We pay less to insure both vehicles than UA is paying for one vehicle.

[jp1]

Nothing says those who are worried about the earth and climate change can't volunteer to pay more taxes. I guess they aren't THAT worried yet.

Except that pretty much every carbon tax that has ever been discussed has been intended to be revenue neutral. Obviously some people/businesses use more than average and would see their taxes go up. The average person might not notice much overall difference in the amount of tax paid.

[jp1]

While my last vehicle was a gift, (used, at 100K miles), you all still assume one must buy new. I never have bought new, and my last used vehilce was $1100 and I ran it for 11 years. Vehicles can and do go over 100K and I have one person I know, who wouldn't buy a vehicle until it hit 100k and then drove them to 300K or someone totaled it.
Speaking of the carbon tax issue, doesn't buying used, just reuse already spent resources, instead of new?

I have a friend who has reached the conclusion that the car companies could build a car to go 300-400k miles without repairs beyond basic maintainence. He's convinced that they don't because it would add too much to the cost of a new car so no one would buy it because no car company could convince it's customers that this time they really had built a car that wouldn't break down. He's also convinced that the car companies build a weak link into every car. Something that will break at some point around 100k miles that will be expensive enough to repair that people will opt to buy a new car instead. He came to this conclusion after years of reading web forums for car fanatics and noticed that it seemed like every model of car had a common major failure point. Each car was different, but if you were on a Camry forum at least 50% of the cars had suffered a failed head gasket in the 100-150k mile range, for example.

[Ultralight]

Well I disagree wholeheartedly. INCLUDING the purchase of a brand new Xterra in 2010 (cash), our average annual cost of running 2 vehicles is $10337 and that's from Jan 1 2010. That is all inclusive.....service, parts, oil change, fluid change, light bulbs, the works and this includes full service. We no longer do this ourselves.

Our cost of running 2 cars since Jan 1 2012 is $475/m or $5696/yr.

Always full coverage insurance.

We pay less to insure both vehicles than UA is paying for one vehicle.

This is interesting.

[Gardnr]

I think it would be interesting for more folks here to report their averages. Many of us track every penny so lots of folks shoudl have the information at their fingertips.

[Gardenarian]

Nothing says those who are worried about the earth and climate change can't volunteer to pay more taxes. I guess they aren't THAT worried yet.

I have no desire to increase my taxes, but taxing gas - actually making people pay the true cost of unsubsidized gas - might discourage people from driving.

I am THAT worried. I rarely drive; I walk, bus, or bike. There should be some incentive to get people the heck out of their cars!