[V8] Cost of Ownership

[Dave Saad]

I don't have any records since I do all my own work, but estimating high, I have spent about $6000 on my Explorer over about 130K miles.  That works out to about $00.04/mile.
My Ranger is closer to $00.01/mile.

I don't want to calculate the V8 because that might make me want to get rid of it.

food for thought...

Dave


On Oct 5, 2011, at 3:49 AM, Roger M. Woodbury wrote:

> I finally got my wife's Audi 100CS Avant to the wrench last week.  All
> summer long the car has been making a louder and louder growling sound in
> the front end. The noise would diminish significantly if I swerved hard to
> the left, although not entirely.  I knew that this was the sound of front
> wheel bearings giving up the ghost.  Finally, I got enough time together to
> take the car the seventy miles to the shop to get the bearings replaced.
> While there, I also got the car through the annual state inspection and the
> oil changed.  Total miles on the car:  169,000.
> 
> It's a small shop in relative terms.  Three mechanics plus John, the owner
> and one female who is a bookkeeper that John is teaching his systems for
> ordering and estimating.  It's quite a beautiful facility, built new for
> John's purpose.  It's like a large barn, with three lifts, four wheel
> allignment equipment and all that stuff.  John also has computer diagnostic
> equipment for all models, and he has told me that he spends somewhere in the
> twenty grand range yearly for computer updating alone.  This is all in rural
> Maine.  The shop is also immaculate which is very important to me:  this is
> not your average "shade tree" mechanic.
> 
> Anyway, I have been going to John since just getting the Audi 100 in 2000.
> It had 39,000 miles on it since new (1994), and I bought it from the Kansas
> City BMW dealer sight unseen, flew out and drove it home.  The dealer had
> been an Audi dealer when it was sold and the woman who had bought the car
> new had it serviced there from new, so they new the car.  
> 
> I bought the car for my wife and I bought it with the idea that we would
> have it maintained professionally on the basis that it was to be kept in
> near new condition mechanically at all times.  Living in Maine if you are a
> car is a tough job.  Maine is dedicated as a state to killing cars, from the
> cold and continuously variable weather to the noxious stuff the State puts
> on the roads in their effort to have ZERO snow and ice ten seconds after the
> first snowflake is seen, its tough being a car.  My wife's Audi has the
> original exhaust, which is still in excellent condition, the original rubber
> gizzies in the rear suspension, although eventually we will need to rebuild
> the rear suspension...perhaps around 200,000 miles if we ever get there.
> There is a little corrosion beneath the rear fenders, and the fuel tank is
> showing some sign of corrosion, but none of that is close to being more than
> typical for the age and mileage, and I intend to have it all restored in
> this next year.  the surface of the car shows its age, and cosmetically, the
> car is ready for light restoration and repainting.  I WANT to repaint it,
> but from twenty five feet, the car still looks nearly new.  It has been
> garaged almost continuoously throughout the time we have had it.
> 
> John's maintenence records are all in computer, so in addition to the hard
> copies that I keep, he also has a continuous record of every service visit,
> what was done, notes regarding potential areas that will need attention at
> some point.  While sitting in the office/waiting room while the bearings
> were being replaced, John ran a total of all the work orders for the 100CS.
> The final verdict is that over the past 130,000 miles Michele's Audi has
> cost just about eleven cents per mile for maintenance and service.  That is
> all repair work, including such things as struts, brakes and so on, and one
> set of wheels and tires.  (I had to replace the Fuchs wheels that were on
> the car a year ago, and I bought a set of used A6 wheels off an A6 Avant
> with high miles that had been abandonned at John's when the owners found
> that the transmission shifter needed to be R&R'd:  they had been given the
> car by a family member so they had no real money in that car, but had just
> put four new Dunlop Graspix tires on it for the winter before they walked
> away.  Thus, last fall I bought four wheels and near zero mile winter tires
> for $400.  I am cheap!).
> 
> Anyway, having the car maintained on a virtually cost no object basis, for
> this 100CS has yielded an Audi with 168,000 miles that is our daily driver
> now, and which runs, rides and handles as new.  Maintenance cost for 130,000
> miles:  11 cents per mile.  Total cost per mile NOT including fuel and tires
> aside from the Dunlops that are on it now:  just about 22 cents per mile.
> 
> I have made no effort to consider excise tax, registration fees, insurance
> or gas and oil in the cost figuring.  It is what it is and as long as I
> drive one car or another, the cost of fuel is not significant.  What is
> significant here to me anyway, is that this Audi is ready for another
> 100,000 miles of driving, and has been pretty cheap to maintain
> professionally to the extent that I have never doubted that when she left,
> driving off in a snowstorm, that the Audi would bring my wife back home
> safely.
> 
> Your experience may vary, of course!
> 
> Roger
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