Economical motoring

[Mactech]

My son’s girlfriend is the proud owner of a 1993 1.7 diesel Chavalier. It was MOT day today and the car failed on 3 items. It required new wiper blades, a front antiroll bar link and rear brake cylinder. The total for these items was a wallet bending £16.38. My son fitted the bits in under and hour and the MOT passed for the £40 fee.
Her employers give her 45p per mile to cover about 8k business miles around Norfolk in a year. The car does 50mpg and was bought with the proceeds of a car she was given, so depreciation is …errr…none. The insurance costs are a bit steep at £350, but she is young and Danish. Service and maintenance costs are just pence and of course it avoids all the company car tax downsides.
By my calculation she is being paid almost £2k a year for the privilege of running this wonderful car. Proper ‘Bangernomics’!
As Mercedes owners, are we getting this all wrong?
Does anyone else run a car (legally!) cheaper?

 

[Will]

My son’s girlfriend is the proud owner of a 1993 1.7 diesel Chavalier. It was MOT day today and the car failed on 3 items. It required new wiper blades, a front antiroll bar link and rear brake cylinder. The total for these items was a wallet bending £16.38. My son fitted the bits in under and hour and the MOT passed for the £40 fee.
Her employers give her 45p per mile to cover about 8k business miles around Norfolk in a year. The car does 50mpg and was bought with the proceeds of a car she was given, so depreciation is …errr…none. The insurance costs are a bit steep at £350, but she is young and Danish. Service and maintenance costs are just pence and of course it avoids all the company car tax downsides.
By my calculation she is being paid almost £2k a year for the privilege of running this wonderful car. Proper ‘Bangernomics’!
As Mercedes owners, are we getting this all wrong?
Does anyone else run a car (legally!) cheaper?

I don't think I can beat any of that, but my 300TE is pretty good.

I wonder if the cavalier diesel could be run on waste veg oil - that way she could be getting paid for the fuel and running it for almost nothing!

Will

 

[Mactech]

I don't think I can beat any of that, but my 300TE is pretty good.

I wonder if the cavalier diesel could be run on waste veg oil - that way she could be getting paid for the fuel and running it for almost nothing!

Will

Yeah! It was considered, but would take a little effort to collect fuel and the starting on chilly Norfolk mornings could be problematical for one devoid of much mechanical knowledge or sympathy!

 

[Ted]

yup!


Sorry, missed the PAID 2k a year!!!!

flipping heck!!

 

[Rovinghawk]

The total for these items was a wallet bending £16.38.

Why so cheap? Doesn't sound possible under normal circumstances.

The car........was bought with the proceeds of a car she was given, so depreciation is …errr…none.

Some interesting maths there, surely? It was bought, regardless of the money's origin, and might well be sold for less later. That's depreciation as opposed to capital outlay.

RH

 

[wemorgan]

Even when I have tried bangernomics I struggled to achieve less than 20 ppm.
That was in a 1994 Citroen ZX 1.9D. Both drive shafts and bush replacements hammered the economics.

 

[Shude]

It's not quite bangernomics in my case but if we use the same calculations as the OP:

£190 - Road tax
£350 - Insurance
£40 - MOT
£4700 - fuel (30k business miles, 30mpg)

The first 10k miles is expensed at 40p/mile then 25p thereafter (HMRC rules) so I get 9k per year in mileage expenses. Knock off the fixed costs and we're down to £3720 left for maintenance.

I've not got the paperwork to hand but I'm certain I spend less than £3720 on other stuff so surely I'm winning right now?!

BUT WAIT! Depreciation!
Not sure how much my car is actually worth (11 years old, 200k miles) but I assume it's not worth much more than £1500 and is only falling by maybe £100 per year now (it's actually worth more as parts than as a car I imagine). Oil and filters need changing and dispite being a mercedes every now and then stuff breaks or falls off. Even if I assume that I spend a grand on repairs and servicing every year I'm left with £2500! Hurrah!

BUT WAIT! Personal mileage. This is the final kick in the pants for my bangernomics because I probably do a further 5000 miles in personal mileage which of course I don't get paid for, that would come to £779.65 in fuel.

I guess I only get paid £1720 per year to run my car*! Not so bad I suppose.

*as I'm self-employed all the expenses actually come from, er me! In other words my car earns better than me on paper and in fact I get paid nothing to run my car. Was fun crunching the numbers though.

 

[Mactech]

Why so cheap? Doesn't sound possible under normal circumstances.
Some interesting maths there, surely? It was bought, regardless of the money's origin, and might well be sold for less later. That's depreciation as opposed to capital outlay.

RH

For someone used to Mercedes prices I agree. But I saw the 'Europarts' bill! £3.40 for the link, £6 something for the cylinder and the rest on the outrageously expensive wiper blades!

I would never claim to be an accountant, but she was given an old Suzuki Jeep thingie when she first came over here which was sold a year on on ebay for £450. The cavalier was bought off a mate for £350 2 years ago, so even if she has to pay to dispose of the thing, she won't have lost much. But most will tell you that anything with a years 'ticket' is worth £300, so you tell me how much she is out of pocket!

 

[James Rothwell]

Apart from fuel it doesn't cost me an awful lot to run cars. I think the Passat 20v Turbo I had was completely free, I had it for 9 months/27,000 miles and sold it for considerably more than I had paid for it even with the extra miles and that profit paid for the fuel and services (which I had done for nothing, I just had to pay parts). I guess that doesn't include insurance but I was pretty chuffed with that car. I got it on my 18th birthday, all my friends where driving 1.2 Clios and things and I was driving a lovely 1800cc turbo Passat Sport in a lovely light blue, I felt so proud!

 

[ringway]

Some interesting maths there, surely? It was bought, regardless of the money's origin,

The owner has a head start in that the original car was free?
She has had a good outcome at dreaded MOT time.
She gets paid for using the car by way of her fuel allowance.
The car is very economical to run.
What more could one want?

When all said and done is that not a great result? That, I'm sure, was the basis of the OP starting the thread in the first place.

It is nice to hear of someone being able to run a car with good fortune and low bills for once.

 

[Mactech]

I guess the one thing that makes this all viable is my son. Apart from being a motorcycle racer, he is also a pretty good (race) mechanic
He probably spends 2 or 3 evenings a year fighting with the beast which he sees as his moral duty to ensure the car is roadworthy.....at no cost to her!

 

[wemorgan]

So the road to economical motoring hangs on marriage? Factor in the cost of the wedding and anniversary presents and the car running costs don't seem so cheap after all

 

[stevesey]

My my calculation she is being paid almost £2k a year for the privilege of running this wonderful car. Proper ‘Bangernomics’!
As Mercedes owners, are we getting this all wrong?
Does anyone else run a car (legally!) cheaper?

My Merc's quite close to that, but only by virtue of the much bigger mileage. I'll have had it two years at the end of the month - I'm opted out of the company car scheme so I get a monthly allowance plus mileage. In two years I've done 42K miles, with 31286 being on business. All in - tax, insurance, depreciation, home servicing, petrol (businees and private) and few minor mods - my spreadsheet says I'm up 3.9K.

In rough terms the yearly costs work out as follows:

Servicing/parts+mods £1000
Petrol £3000
Depreciation £1150 (must be less next year)
Insurance/Tax £500

 

[Mactech]

So the road to economical motoring hangs on marriage? Factor in the cost of the wedding and anniversary presents and the car running costs don't seem so cheap after all

Not sure about marriage! But it has been going on for 4 years now. I came back from a month in the States a few years ago to find she had moved in! The timing was apparently purely coincidental!
They fortunately have their own place now

 

[219]

My first 190E ( the B reg one ) , I bought for £300 , spent perhaps double that on it over three years ownership , including 4 new tyres , genuine MB back box , 4x discs , pads etc and a water pump . Can't remember what mileage I covered but I do remember getting a best of 38 mpg and more usually abput 30 mpg with it .

Gave it away to a mate in the end , due to pressure from SWMBO after getting the 2.6 , but could have probably got something for it if I had put it up for sale . It is still going strong .

Old Mercs never die ..........