2007 Mazda3 12 month costs (May 23, 2007 to May 22, 2008)
| Fuel | $1,973 | 29% |
| Insurance | 1,670 | 24% |
| New car tax | 1,274 | 19% |
| Interest Expense | 727 | 11% |
| Service | 370 | 5% |
| DMV Registration | 362 | 5% |
| Depreciation | 275 | 4% |
| Accessories | 121 | 2% |
| Documentation Fee | 55 | 1% |
| Jury Duty parking ticket | 14 | 0% |
| CA Tire Fee | 9 | 0% |
| Total Costs | $6,851 | |
| Miles Driven | 18,619 | |
| Cost per mile | $0.37 |
For comparison:
Total cost of ownership for the 1993 Ford Taurus SHO (64 months).
| Insurance | $11,070 | 39% |
| Service | 9,151 | 32% |
| Fuel | 4,338 | 15% |
| Depreciation | 2,590 | 9% |
| Rentals | 697 | 2% |
| DMV Registration | 624 | 2% |
| Ebay Fees | 94 | 0% |
| Total Costs | $28,564 | |
| Miles Driven | 32,645 | |
| Cost per mile | $0.87 |
Footnotes:
1 I’m not including the car payments because the car is an asset and the the loan is a liability. The correct way to calculate costs is to add the value of your car as an asset, add the value of your loan as a liability (which has a net effect of 0) and only look at the depreciation and interest expense. Depreciation—the difference between the purchase price and sale price is part of the total cost of ownership.
2 I expect fuel costs per mile to drop this year since the price of fuel went down.
3 The insurance rate for the Mazda3 reflects what I paid before getting married. It is much less now that I’m married so that will go down this year but in my next report I won’t be able to split the insurance by vehicle since it doesn’t show up that way on my statements.
4 Depreciation is low because I shopped around and got a very good deal on the Mazda3—about $4,000 less than what Costco offered ($100 over invoice) for the exact same model. At some points last year I could have sold my car for more than I bought it for. However, I expect depreciation to be much higher this year. Depreciation calculated from KBB.
5 The insurance rate for the SHO is what I /would/ have paid had I not been living with my parents… this is higher because my insurance company was 21st (I use Amica now) and they didn’t have very good rates. But because I lived with my parents I paid much less than that. If I remove insurance from the calculations on both vehicles the SHO is $0.54/mile compared to the Mazda3’s $0.28/mile.