£1008 for an ABS unit! You must have been happy with the car to spend that amount on a repair?
I looked around - and that was about the normal cost for the unit plus fitting. It wasn't too difficult a decision as the alternative would have been to scrap the car - it was unsaleable/unMoTable in that state. We discussed it on the BR at the time and the ABS unit seemed to be a very rare thing to fail. As it turned, out the decision was sound - at 48,000 miles later, the ol' girl's just passed her MoT again.
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Jeez that mpg is good. I average 26.77 in my 1.8 Focus.
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Wait for Adam to comment on his Focus... he's suffered from consumption. Well the car anyway.
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Jeez that mpg is good. I average 26.77 in my 1.8 Focus.>>
Considering that I'm very light-footed, I didn't think very much to the mpg - then saw in the handbook their figure of 32.5, so maybe it's not too bad after all.
I'd heard that the 1.8 Focus was pretty quick and could be thirsty, but I would have thought it would do better than 26.77. SWMBO's 1.6 Focus does a fraction over 36mpg, measured over 2.5 years.
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Interesting.
Did you include finance / lost interest on the purchase price in your calculations? I understand that in the official calculations by the RAC, AA etc, that is an important part of the total running cost.
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Did you include finance / lost interest on the purchase price in your calculations? I understand that in the official calculations by the RAC, AA etc, that is an important part of the total running cost.
>>
Thanks for the interest.
I didn't include finance as I paid cash for the car. I appreciate that 'Which' and others include a figure for loss of interest on the purchase price - which in this case would average approx £225-£250pa (I think). However, I consider this to be too pedantic - even for me. IIRC the 'Which' reports even said how much you had to earn as a basic/higher rate taxpayer in order to pay for it. It's a bit like saying 'Yes, I paid £50 for that meal, but it actually cost me £52.50 because of the loss of interest - what's more, I had to earn £67.31 (plus NI etc) in order to have enough money to come out and eat in the first place!'. Spoils the meal somewhat!
In the case of newer cars, by far the biggest contribution to cost comes from depreciation in the car value. If you take out £500pa from my calculation (for replacement spares etc) and put in £3000pa for depreciation, you can see exactly where the IR gets its tax allowance of 40p per mile from.
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Auto Bild has just released the total running costs for 500 cars which includes everything and are regarded as the bible in Germany.A quick glance shows that diesels are more expensive than the compatable petrol, the Mondeo 2.0 diesel cost was 55euros per 100km and the petrol 52 euros.Although diesel is cheaper than petrol the savings are soon wiped out by higher road taxes and servicing costs.
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A quick glance shows that diesels are more expensive than thecompatable petrol, the Mondeo 2.0 diesel cost was 55euros per 100km and the petrol 52 euros.Although diesel is cheaper than petrol the savings are soon wiped out by higher road taxes and servicing costs.
The petrol one works out to about 55.5 ppm, then - which I would think very likely if it were a new car and loss of interest etc were factored in.
SWMBO bought her s/h petrol Focus for £8500 against the identical diesel which was offered at £10500 after we worked out that it would take over 10 years to repay that difference at her annual mileage rate.
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>>However, I consider this to be too pedantic - even for me
I'm sure you didn't forget the odd litre of fuel, seemingly you didn't round up your TCO per mile to the nearest 5p, so why would that interest be too pedantic to include.
I think a true TCO figure is an excellent reference, but it should be truly "total".
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I'm sure you didn't forget the odd litre of fuel, seemingly you didn't round up your TCO per mile to the nearest 5p, so why would that interest be too pedantic to include.
Sorry, what's a TCO?
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I'm sure you didn't forget the odd litre of fuel, >>
Nope - I didn't forget the odd litre of fuel BUT I didn't account for the few drips that I lost during filling, nor that lost during servicing, emission testing etc. I don't think this would have a significant effect on the mpg but it was included in the total cost.
>>why would that interest be too pedantic to include.
If you REALLY want to add in a complete figure for loss of interest over a 5 year running period, it would get extremely complicated as there would be, not only the initial sum paid out, but all the subsequent costs that periodically have to be met. And what figure should we use for interest? And would we allow for taxation (basic or higher?) of that interest , or would we put it in an ISA? Or should we invest it in the stockmarket and lose the lot? It all gets far too silly if you try to take it to the Nth degree.
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I didn't include finance as I paid cash for the car.
I considerthis to be too pedantic - even for me.
By virtue of reading your original post and finding it interesting, I am showing myself to be a saddo. Now it turns out I'm a pedant as well!
I'm not sure it is so pedantic - since it is a real cost, and one that for me amounts to about 10% of the cost of running my car.
Thanks for the tip about the £50 meal. Realising that I will be paying a couple of quid every year for the rest of my life for that meal will certainly help to concentrate my mind before I go into a restaurant.
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Thanks for the tip about the £50 meal. Realising that I will be paying a couple of quid every year for the rest of my life for that meal will certainly help to concentrate my mind before I go into a restaurant.
Errr.....lest you think I'm a gastronaut - £50 would be for me and SWMBO, AND include a decent bottle of pop!
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Blimey.I average 37 mpg in my mazda 6
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It would be reasonable to take the interest available in an instant access account (say the Nationwide) and deduct basic rate tax, since anyone running a car on those miles etc. will be paying basic rate tax.
Egg do carry a historical interest rate file on their website which I use from time to time.
It does depend of course whether the car is bought out of real or imaginery capital. If you regularly have borrowings (including mortage) then you should really be using the highest rate of interest you are paying as your cost of capital, as it is fair to assume that if you had not bought the car you would not have incurred that debt to that amount.
So if you are running a debt on a CC of more than your car's cost price, then you are effectively paying for the car via the CC, so that rate of interest prevails, even if you did not use the CC to buy it.
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Whatever way you look at it, running a new(ish) car is going to be expensive.
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In the Mondeo's (and Waino's) defence, this is the estate version we are talking about. If it was the hatchback it may do a few mpg more.......
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I am running a 2004 1.8 mondeo estate at the moment and it is doing 34.2 mph according the computer which I think is quite reasonable ,but fuel is only a part of the picture.
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Has anyone spotted the new "Real Cost" indicators on whatcar.com. That was an eye opener, I never realised quite how much money cars suck out of us...
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I couldn't find the 'Real cost' indicator on the whatcar site, but found the depreciation data and comparison graphs. According to that, a new Mondeo, equivolent to mine, would lose £10,918 in value in its first year - blimey! If you did 15,000 miles in the first year and costed loss of interest at 5%, then cost per mile would be 79p before you added the costs of petrol, tax etc. The data fall down because the start price is quoted (presumably) at RRP, which no one would be paying.
There's no way I would run a new car - unless I won one in a raffle!
In the grand picture, a few mpg doesn't make much difference compared to depreciation; however I always reckon that if we paid for fuel in fivers and tenners rather than with a bit of plastic, we'd feel the pain more.
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