Average cost of car repairs and maintenace on YOUR car over 8 years?

catsareniice1 · January 2014

I recently posted about leasing vs. buying.

Looks like buying is where I am leaning but I am curious to know what the average cost you guys spent say over say 8 years or so on:

car repairs AND maintenance.

I read online somewhere that the average person spends about 1,200 per year for repairs and maintenance.

Jennycolada · January 2014

Well I recently spent $990 getting an oil change and replacing my timing belt. I think I did a similar amount of maintenance a couple of years ago. I also need to buy 2 tired which will be about $200 (or less?). I think I've bought, in total, 6 tires so far. I lag on my oil changes and get about 3/year, so about $50 each (because they sometimes have a minor tube or liquid fix).

This is all over 9 years now.

Oh and I got my windshield replaced once, but I don't think that counts.

So I'd say, on average, maybe $600/year?

catsareniice1 · January 2014

Jennycolada said:

Well I recently spent $990 getting an oil change and replacing my timing belt. I think I did a similar amount of maintenance a couple of years ago. I also need to buy 2 tired which will be about $200 (or less?). I think I've bought, in total, 6 tires so far. I lag on my oil changes and get about 3/year, so about $50 each (because they sometimes have a minor tube or liquid fix). This is all over 9 years now. Oh and I got my windshield replaced once, but I don't think that counts. So I'd say, on average, maybe $600/year?

Not bad at all! What make/model?

Jennycolada · January 2014

Honda Civic LX 2005.

hoffse · January 2014

I mean....

One repair ever for $550. So that averages $68,75/year. I get my oil changed twice a year for $40 total. And I have bought new tires once for $440.

Total average: $163.75.

I drive a 2007 Honda CR-V. It was new when I got it.

My parents have never had a repair, but I think they've bought new tires for most of their cars. So their average is $95/year. They have owned 3 Hondas since I've been aware of it (a 1997 Accord, a 2003 Accord, and a 2007 CR-V). All were new. We drove the 1997 for 10 years and 140K miles before trading it in. That became my car when I turned 16.

I'm not sure how you could spend $1200/year unless you had just a really unreliable car.... or a single major repair that was so expensive it boosts the average. Even in my husband's car (which I keep calling "crappy") is way way less than that. We've spent a total of about $2000 on it for repairs and then oil changes twice a year. He's never gotten new tires for it. So that averages $290/year for him. It feels like too much to me, which is one of many reasons we are trading it in. He drives a 2005 Nissan Altima that was used when he bought it.

And for the record, I don't think certain maintenance things really count. Even in a leased car you should be changing the oil twice a year or every 3,000-5,000 miles. That should be an expense you are incurring regardless. Once in awhile you will need to change air filters or top off fluids, whether you are leasing or owning. You should also rotate your tires. None of this is expensive - and most can be done on your own if you are willing to get a little messy (I suggest investing in a good jack - I cheaped out on that and can rotate my tires but not change my oil). But either way, these are things you should be doing to maintain any car you are driving.

hoffse · January 2014

I should add on the tires: I had the first generation of the "new" Honda CR-Vs. When it was time for new tires, it was hard to find the correct size for a good price. I ended up going to Sam's Club and got a decent price for what I was buying, but it still wasn't great compared to options in other sizes. These days, so many people drive those cars that the tire size is now standard.

Point is: if you plan to keep a car for 8 years, probably the single largest true "maintenance" expense you will incur (that you wouldn't normally get with a leased car) is tires. You can lower the cost of that for yourself by buying a car that has standard sized tires so you can comparison shop. It's not a great idea to run tires completely into the ground because it can be dangerous if you let it go too long.

And I spend $40/year per car on oil changes by using groupon. There's always an oil change groupon that pops up for a price I'm willing to pay. But once I'm no longer sharing a parking lot with a bunch of other apartment dwellers, I will probably buy a jack that is tall enough to change my own oil. It's not a difficult thing to do, but it does require you to get fully underneath the car. Then oil changes will cost me about $5-$10 per change.

Xstatic3333 · January 2014

I've had my 2012 Fit for two years/70,000 miles and have only had oil changes (it requires synthetic, so they are $50 each) and new engine coolant and filters. My car has an oil sensor that tells you when you "really" need a change, so mine are only every 10,000 miles.

Soon I will need my brakes done (200-300) and new tires. My tires are a strange size and not always in stock everywhere so this could run me 500+ even at a big box discounter. Hoffse's advice is good-look into tire costs before you buy!

brij2006 · January 2014

I'm going to do these figures on my old car. It was a 2009 Ford Fusion.

Spent $800 on tires (low profile), $30 every 4 months for an oil change, $10 every 8 months for tire rotation, $15 for an air filter, and $20 for wiper blades. So over the course of the 5 years I owned it (70k miles), it cost me $1,385. Average of $277 a year for maintenance.

I have a 2011 Ford Flex now (for 6 months), and the only thing I've had to do is get an oil change for $30 and replace the windshield wipers for $15.

IAmSherlocked · January 2014

I drive an '08 Honda CR-V and I think the only thing I've bought for my car was a new battery last year (about $100 or so I think), my normal oil changes ($40-$60 a year depending on how often I have it done or if I can convince DH to do it for me--it's easy to do yourself), a new air filter and tires a few years ago. With the tires I couldn't really find a good price on them (plus I was young and had never had to deal with that sort of stuff before so I just nodded along with whatever the guy at the store recommended for the Colorado snow). I want to say they cost me about $700, but if I had done my research I wouldn't have paid that much (and I wouldn't have charged it to my credit card--lesson learned!). Those tires have gotten me across the country a couple of times though, so they're lasted pretty well.

My mom has 2 SUVs and I think she has sunk a pretty decent amount of money into them in the last year or so. She has a 2002 Dodge Durrango and a 2004 Chevy Suburban. She recently had to get an alternator belt replaced, she had some issues with leaks, and it looks like the brakes in the Suburban need to be replaced soon. Granted this is all stuff that seems to be happening in the last year or so and she's driven these cars without issue for about 10 years, so that's not too bad.

DH probably skews that average price way up. His little 2005 Sunfire has been through a lot--2 wrecks that probably should have totaled the car (luckily insurance covered the repairs since neither were his fault), a new windshield last year, his radio died so he put a new one in, his passenger window died so we had to replace the little contraption that let's you open/close it, and I'm sure a few more things that I can think of. Granted he didn't pay much for his car and it was his first one that he bought while in high school (he took as good care of it as you would expect from a 16 yo boy). He's already said that he plans to drive that thing until it dies, rebuild it and keep on driving it, so we'll have that little beater car for a long time.

I think as long as you get a reliable car like some of the ones that PPs have mentioned, you won't spend nearly $1200 a year on a car. I believe there are some sites that let you look into the average cost of owning a particular car so you might check out some of those too.

smerka · January 2014

Keep in mind that the more expensive maintenance type things (replacing belts, tires etc) don't happen until you get to around 60,000, 75,000, or even 100,000 miles. I drive a 2004 Saturn Vue with just over 100,000 miles on it. I drive MUCH less now that I'm a SAHM than I did when I was working, so I take it in twice a year for oil changes. That usually winds up costing me ~$800 each time because I wind up having to get new tires or brakes or belts or whatever. But even at $1,600 a year that is less than car payments would be for the year so I can't justify getting a new vehicle even though a minivan would fit our lifestyle much better. When I first got it, there were some things that went wrong (alternator, CD player broke, windshield wiper thingy) but they were covered by the warranty and I didn't have to pay anything. Most new cars come with roadside assistance for the first three years or so. We recently talked to our insurance company and we got equivalent coverage for $14 per year per car. The cost of repairs is also greatly dependent on the make of the car. My parents have a Volvo and a BMW and the parts are crazy expensive. Saturn is out of business, but GM still makes the parts so it isn't hard to get parts. I think European cars are the worst, but Asian and American cars aren't that bad. To sum up: buying > leasing

vlagrl29 · January 2014

I get my oil changed every 5k miles and tires rotated every 6k miles. I replace my tires on an average of every 5-6 years. Other things like replacing timing belt, flushing out fluids, etc. aren't even necessary until you've had that car for many years. I bought my car new and had a 3 year warranty on it. A couple years ago I had lots of repairs in 1 year and that kinda hit us hard but it was still cheaper than a car payment.

Apollo11235 · January 2014

This question depends a lot on how old your car is and how much you drive it, as well as the make and model of course.

When I drove a 20-year-old Volvo and was only putting a few thousand miles a year on it, I used to spend a couple hundred here and there (once or twice a year, maybe?), and I had a couple of bigger, $4-700 repairs over the 4 years I owned it. So maybe $600-650/yr average.

I now drive a 2003 Corolla, so it's getting to be on the old side. I put about 6k miles a year on it, so I change the oil for $30 once or twice a year. I've owned it for almost 5 years and I'm pretty sure I've spent less than $2k total on other repairs and maintenance since then. So I guess that makes it maybe $450/yr.

DH drives a 2003 Acura TL. He likes to use synthetic oil, so call it $50 once or twice a year for oil changes (it was more like 2-3x before he started driving less in recent months). We've had to spend a lot on it in the past year, maybe $900 in repairs and maintenance, but before that (and hopefully for this year at least) it was pretty low maintenance - maybe another $900 since he bought it in '09. That puts it at under $550/yr.

sillygoosegirl · January 2014

I don't have records handy that go back that far, but I think it's been between around $400 and $1000 each year. The year we got the timing belt replaced was the big one, most years have been on the lower end. We drive a '99 Honda Accord (and another car still under warrantee--before that we shared the Honda for around a decade), so it would have been between a 7- to 15-year-old car during that time.

I don't remember how many miles we put on it, but I looked it up compared with the national average, and we match up pretty close (comparing miles on our 1 shared car to the per person miles driven number I found--I'm assuming most people don't share a car with their spouse). It's been many years since we've driven to work regularly (I think 1 year out of the past 8), but we take a ton of road trips.

JuneMrs · January 2014

My last car was 9 years old when I traded it in because I needed something larger for kids. In the time I owned the car I changed the oil 3x a year, got new tires 1x during the life of the car, and got 1 new battery during the life of the car right before I sold it.

catsareniice1 · January 2014

Appreciate all the responses. You guys are selling me on buying now.

Wulfgar · January 2014

My Kia Rio that I had for 10 years cost me roughly $500 a year total and this was to get to 205k miles or averaging 20,000 miles a year.

My Kia Soul has had nothing but oil changes, wiper blades replaced, and one set of new tires. It is a 2010 that has roughly 65k miles. Next year I will have to replace the timing belt for roughly $900 but so far it is tracking the maintenance of my Rio.

Average cost of car repairs and maintenace on YOUR car over 8 years?

Re: Average cost of car repairs and maintenace on YOUR car over 8 years?

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