Getting another vehicle?

Wife is getting a little car that gets 35-40 mpg. We currently have a Tahoe 12-14 mpg. I am curious if extra mpg?s will save enough to pay maintenance and insurance and plates for second car? Both are paid for. They?re old. Both will be used to run tractor related errands.

So many factors missing that I think it would be impossible to figure out an answer. What kind of car, how many miles do you drive every year, cost of insurance, plates, maintenance, etc. What kind of car are you looking at? That kind of mileage is pretty good if a person can squeeze that out in real life (and not an EPA estimate of mileage). I think you'd be pretty much on your own to get an answer to your quesiton.

Probably no,, unless you drive a lot, and thats a awful lot of miles per year. A paid for car as long as its running is hard to out do..

NOW,, if your buying a new one anyway... then it cost little more to buy one that gets great mpgs, vrs one that gets low mpgs...

If you drive 15000 miles a year, at 20 mpg, you burn 750 gallons
If you drive 15000 miles a year at 40 mpg, you burn 375 gallons

so you would save 375 gallons at 2 bucks a gallon means you saved $750 per year. $750 a year will not hardly make a single car payment, plus the additional insurance, not to mention down payment. You can work out the various cost of fuel vrs the various mpgs per vehicles and still most likely will not come up more than one to three of months of car payments saved. gas goes to 4 bucks and its now 6 months of car payments saved so it start to get to a better payback... but a paid for, good running vehicle is hard to beat. Careful driving with no warmups or excessive idling can easily push up mpg's on any vehicle by 3 mpg... of course it depends on interest rates, down payments, credit ratings etc. Now get you one of those interest free loans, and 1700 dollar tax incentive, you can start to do better... And most of us just are going to replace our cars anyway, anyhow.

I have a 2008 Honda Fit sport. Been a good car and saved a lot of money on gas compared to my truck. Glad I had it when gas was about $ 4.00 gal ! I average 32 mpg but do town driving too. I don't know what car would get 40 mpg these days except a hybrid. I see a lot of people with Kia Soul running around. You can find these both used pretty cheap.

A few years ago I figured it out for my situation. 35 miles round trip 6 days a week. 30 mpg car vs 11 mpg pickup. Car priced was new enough to not expect problems, but was a salvage rebuild. After paying for the car, tags, insurance, I would have been saving $3 per month.

Pickup was paid for at the time, and still needed to have one, but at some point was going to cost some repairs just due to age/mileage. Ended up buying newer pickup instead.

Only having one car is difficult. Even if you work on it yourself you still have no way to go back to the parts store. You have to finish it tonight. Even buying tires you have to wait for them to get to you. What if it won't start in an emergency. Two cars are worth a lot more than math will prove.

Depends on a lot of things. I got worried way back about 15 years ago when it looked like gas was going to top $2 a gallon. My van was getting 15 mpg on a normal commute if that. I bought a used 5 year old Geo Metro figuring it would pay for itself in about a year. Gas kept going up and I started to break even at 6 months. Drove it for about 12 years.

It would be more like a wash, however: "Happy wife, happy life". Your call.

Here in Michigan the auto insurance is punishing to anyone owning multiple vehicles regardless of how much they are driven and the driving record of the driver(s), thanks to the no fault accident rules...it's hard to understand...the state famous for automobile manufacture literally fining it's auto owners for having automobiles(s).......Only in America (sigh)..........

Here in Michigan the auto insurance expense is punishing to anyone owning multiple vehicles regardless of how much they are driven and the driving record of the driver(s), thanks to the no fault accident rules...it's hard to understand...the state famous for automobile manufacture literally fining it's auto owners for having automobiles(s).......Only in America (sigh)..........

haven't put a tank of gas through my truck in a month, sure wouldn't work for me.







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haven't put a tank of gas through my truck in a month, sure wouldn't work for me

I have an 2001 GMC 2500 work truck that only gets driven a couple thousand miles per year. Being my third vehicle my insurance company gives me a discount if driven less than 7500 miles per year. Being an older truck only worth $3000 I only carry liability insurance. So my old truck costs me about $300 per year for license and insurance. My main daily driver is a smaller car that gets 35mpg. Maintenance on the small car is cheap compared to a pickup. Maintenance items like tires, batteries, brakes, etc cost 1.5 to 2 times more for the pickup. My pickup lives in my shed and I don't use it much in winter so doesn't see salt. It will last decades with basic maintenance. The daily runner car gets replaced every 10 to 12 years and when it gets replaced it cost half of a pickup. So for me it is a no brainer to have the extra vehicle. Almost every cost for a small car from initial purchase to fuel cost to maintenance is about half of what a pickup costs.

I have been in northern Michigan for three years. Insurance is higher then it was in NY, but not all that bad. Four cars and trucks - cost $800 total every six months. One motorhome costs $364 for an entire year. So each car or truck is $34 per month. Motorhome is $30 a month.

You'd have to do the math,if she commutes daily to work and it's near 50mi one way absolutely but if it's more of an errands grocery getter probably not.

I have a 45 mile round trip commute every day. Drive about 20,000 miles a year. Even back when gas was $4 a gallon, it did not pay to own and maintain a second smaller car.

Figuring 20 gallons of gas per week at $4 a gallon came out to about $350 a month (30 days in a month, not 4 weeks).

Out of that $350 would have to come the payment for the smaller car, insurance for the smaller car, maintenance for the smaller car, and gas for BOTH vehicles. It always figured out to cost $100-$200 MORE per month to own the two vehicles.

Even if I paid cash for a small car, that money has to be replenished. The whole point of having the small car is to save money, so the replenishment should come from the money "saved" by not driving the truck. It just didn't pencil out.

The only way to save money was to get rid of the truck completely and own only a small car.

Agreed. But as you say it all depends. Most pickups actually get closer to 15 MPG - and even less for the 3/4 and 1 tons. A cheap used car that gets good mileage is also probably a lot closer to 30-35 than 40 MPG. But then you have the other issues - like tires. I'm doing very well if I can get 40,000 miles out of a set of tires on my pickup - at $150 a tire. A cheap small car can get tires for $60 - then make them last 60K or more (no gravel).

At 15,000 miles a year some time after year 2 you are looking at $600 for the pickup, some time at the end of year 4 you are looking at $240 on the car.

Then you have the up front costs. For me to buy a pickup that is good enough (assuming used on everything) that I can rely on it to make the round trip to work 5-6 days a week, have an extended cab to haul the curtain climbers I'm looking at a minimum of $10,000 - $15,000 for something a little better. A decent smaller car is easily half those numbers or less for something in similar condition. After you crank out 200K to 250K on the vehicle the car is worth $1000 the truck is worth $2,000.

(quoted from post at 18:12:36 02/22/18) Wife is getting a little car that gets 35-40 mpg. We currently have a Tahoe 12-14 mpg. I am curious if extra mpg?s will save enough to pay maintenance and insurance and plates for second car? Both are paid for. They?re old. Both will be used to run tractor related errands.

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35 to 40 mpg? I'll bet that it doesn't.