Annual Summary

Write it Down!
Your Car's Pedigree
Organize Once a Year
Buy a New Car When...
Words To Live By
What Does That Do?
Do It Yourself
The Great Quotations

It’s a good idea to keep track of annual maintenance expenses. You’ll be able to spot trends early and be in a position to make informed decisions. As an example, here are the actual figures for Dr. Dipstik’s own Ferrari 550 Maranello Berlinetta automobile. Dr. Dipstik has disguised this car to be virtually indistinguishable in appearance, both inside and out, and have the exact handling and performance, of a 1986 Volkswagen. The unsavory character of Dr. Dipstik’s neighborhood places certain demands.

The data illustrate some interesting points: This car has averaged about $1100 annually in repairs over the eighteen years of its life - so far. The annual expenses are shown by the green line. In the early years, they were well below the industry average for all cars of about $700, but they jump abruptly above the average in the fifth year. The annual expenses then swing wildly up and down in the ensuing years. However, the running annual average still only creeps up slowly as shown by the graph with the triangular dots and blue line. It actually took fully 10 years for the running average to exceed $700.

What’s going on here? The reason for these swings in the year to year data is that as a car ages, major components periodically wear out and must be replaced. However, note that years of high expense are followed by ones of relatively low expense. This happens because after major repairs, long periods of trouble-free driving are experienced. You can expect a similar situation as your vehicle ages. The important point is that the average doesn’t change very much at all from year to year. Even though the running annual average for this car is higher than desirable - it’s still not too bad. After 18 years - and 165,000 miles - the cost to maintain the vehicle has averaged less than $100 a month. Compare that with the expenses of owning several new cars over the same period.

How long can you keep this up? Indefinitely - as long as you can get replacement parts. After all, this is exactly what the airlines do to maintain their aircraft. Next time your personal posterior is reclining lazily in a seat at 35,000 feet, remind yourself that you may well be sitting in an airplane that’s more than 20 years old. The airlines are required to follow rigid maintenance procedures by law and a side effect is that their vehicles last a very long time. There are other reasons why planes last longer than autos, but that’s certainly one of the main ones.

What do you give up?

Reliability. Sooner or later, you have a chance of not getting to where you’re going. However, if you’ve maintained your car according to the recommendations here, the probability is fairly small that there will be a problem serious enough to strand you.

Low cost per mile. It does cost more to maintain a vehicle as time wears on. The red graph shows how it increases. The scale for the graph is also shown in red and is on the right. It cost about 2 cents/mile to keep the vehicle in repair for the first 5 years - almost nothing. The next 5 years increased to an average of about 7 cents/mile. The most recent 4 years have remained a fairly constant 12 cents/mile. Again, expenses are relative. Is 12 cents/mile a lot relative to depreciation and interest payments on a new car? Not really.