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figuring out total cost of ownership

8400 Views 24 Replies 11 Participants Last post by  blue, 
Roadkill401
I don't know if anyone else out there tracks what the put into any car and when they trade/sell/dispose of it work out the yearly cost of ownership. For me, I have tracked for the past 3 cars and found that the cost seems to be going up considerably, but not from the initial price of purchase, but actually from the reliability and repair costs associated.

My first "real" car was a new 96 Ford Explorer Sport. This for some reason works out to have the lowest total cost of ownership as it just kept on going without very much ever going wrong with it and any repairs that needed to get done were pretty low cost. As I am in Canada, the car cost me $26,500 after taxes and financing charges. I ended up putting in $2,900 in ongoing repairs and $1,800 in consumables (tires, breaks, wipers, oil). I kept the car for 12 years so it ended up with $2,600 per year (number rounded to the nearest hundred dollars

My next car was a used 2006 Ford Escape as I couldn't afford any of the Explorers any more as their cost skyrocketed as everyone wanted bigger and bigger trucks. I paid $16,000 for the vehicle but ended up spending over $4,800 in repairs before I gave up. My consumables were only $900 as the car lasted me 6 years and was traded in for $1800 bringing the TOA to $3,330 per year.

My last car was another Ford. This time I got a used 2013 Edge for $24500. I got a bit hosed with this car as within the first year of ownership the breaks froze up and overheated the rotors. The garage I took it too also told me the ABS sensors were shot (that I believe was likely false now in afterthought) for $2300. I did buy snow tires for the car $1300. Consumables (oil & wipers $400 as I decided to go synthetic to try and get the most life out of the car. I ended up having to replace the front breaks again (pads and rotors) as they locked up again and destroyed the rotor $580. The front center console unit failed and I ended up replacing $550. I figured out that the electronics and breaks were going to be a constant issue and decided I didn't want to keep fixing it and traded it in for $12500 after my 4 years of driving. TOA - $4300 per year.


Now I got the Kia Niro at $31,250. I don't know if I should be counting the negative dollar amount of fuel savings to be fair as all my past cars have been gas (and i am sure if you were quiet while driving, you could hear the engine just sucking the gas tank dry).

From an interesting side, my wife picked up a used 2006 Kia Sportage about 2 years after I got the Escape, and it lasted her for 8.5 years with a TOA of $1720 per year. Obviously Kia is a better value for dollar over a Ford.
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N
Are you factoring in inflation? There’s no doubt that things cost more today than they did 20 years. And, nowadays, when something breaks, you have to replace the whole component instead of just a part within it and labor costs are crazy.

You didn’t explicitly say it, but I assume your first car was new and you kept it for 12 years. You don’t say how old the used vehicles were when you bought them, probably one or two years old. Since you didn’t have them when they were new, you didn’t have the honeymoon period where there should have been relatively no repairs or they were covered under warranty.

And then there’s the fact that you only kept your last two cars for 6 and 4 years. Hopefully, there would be one or two years in between major repairs and if you kept your second and third vehicles for 10 plus years, the average costs would be lower.

Hopefully your Niro will treat you better than your Fords! And you should factor in your gas costs. That’s the whole point of getting a hybrid, right?
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Roadkill401
I am the type of person who is quite happy to drive a vehicle for 10-12 years. I don't lease and flip from being board of a particular car.



You are correct in the first car did get a much longer run for the dollars. The Escape was about 3 years old purchased off lease when the previous owner traded it in. I did the mistake of not taking it to get crown rustproofing as I did with the previous Explorer, and after the 6 years the rear arches on both back doors were almost completely shot. Also the plastic fuel line from the tank wasn't tied down correctly and was chaffed all over the back length and eventually split squirting gas all over the inside of the back of the car. I could have fixed the problems but came to the conclusion that perhaps it was a smart time to get rid of the car and get something better. I feared that if I sunk in the money to get the parts fixes, there would be something else that went wrong and I'd be faced with sinking even more money into the car or walking away with greater debt.


The Edge was just that it's breaking system I later found out is simply defective and requires you to strip/clean/re-lubricate the breaks twice a year just to keep them working. This is the first car that I have heard that requires this sort of maintenance.
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Y
The cost of ownership definitely includes fuel. The Niro has been getting almost double the mpg of my last car in most situations. That means my fuel cost is half, depending on relative gas price. You could also include some figure for reducing the the hassle of frequent fill ups. I get well over 600 miles per tank - best 701 miles - happened on a trip through Canada as it happens. New York to Ohio, made it through Canada without paying Canadian gas taxes.
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C
The costs of the Niro are definitely going down substantially for me, versus what I drove every day before. My other car, when I put 18k Niles a year on it, cost me almost $20k per year to use. Accounting for depreciation, maintenance, gas, etc. The Niro, I don't know how much it will be yet, but I'm betting it's way less than half that.

I've been plugging in my PHEV Niro most nights lately, and averaging over 70mpg as a result. My previous daily driver got 12mpg, required premium gas, and cost over $7k a year in maintenance. Not because it broke a lot, but because the things that broke costed a fortune. A bad O2 sensor would cost over $1k with labor. Fuel injectors cost $1250 for the set, another $1500 to have them installed. An oil change is $200. The list goes on and on, and that's why I got the Niro for a new daily driver, to offset the costs. The amount of money it's saving me when I drive it instead of my other car, it's virtually a free car.
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M
You got a great deal on your Niro ??
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Roadkill401
We bought two of them. A grey one for my wife, and the blue one for me. Hers came with 26km on the odometer and she said she averaged 5.2 L/100km (45mpg) on the drive home from the dealership. I know that mine was driven once for a test drive by someone else as it has 57km on the odometer and showed 9.7 L/100Km on the fuel efficiancy when I turned on the key. However, I seem to be getting around the 5.6L/100Km average for any trips that I am taking. I had to do the daddyUber job shuttling to and from dance classes tonight. There were times that I managed to coax the engine to shut off and cruse around the back streets in just EV mode without the engine kicking in. In those times, I did manage to get it down to the 5.2L/100Km but soon the hybrid battery ran low and the motor kicks in and qickly drives it back up. I am sitting at an ECO score of 4 on the hybrid menu. But it is still only on day 1, so I will have to see how it does for the next week or so.
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M
Hello!

Thanks for sharing this good info. I was curious to know how often do you have to do oil changes to the Kia Niro (regular hybrid model) and what's the average cost? When you calculate the cost of ownership of the car, do you count all gas consumption, oil changes, tire changes, repair maintenance, insurance, state inspections, etc? I am looking forward to buying a Kia Niro because my current cost of ownership of a 2005 Honda Element is averaging $5k to $6K per year. The things I love about the Niro besides its fuel efficiency is the reduced rate of emissions which is much better than my current drive.

Thanks!
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Y
How often does anyone change oil? Most stick to the manual which is 7,500 miles for the Niro. Some do 2,000 miles (still in 1950). My last change interval was 25,000 miles. Had the oil tested and it was fine.

Generally cost of ownership is the same as for any car, but halving or so the fuel cost portion. Brake maintenance and cost should be about half as well. That's it for cost savings.
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atc98092
If you're leasing, I suggest following the scheduled maintenance schedule KIA provides. But if you own it, @yticolev offers a good suggestion. Test it and follow the test guidance. Most cars, especially hybrids, really don't need an oil change as often as the manufacturer publishes. But they are simply covering their posterior for legal reasons.
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Dovidan
Niro's little ICE 4 banger seems pretty solid. I don't recall seeing any issues with it despite some very high oiil change intervals. Certainly the fact that the ICE doesn't provide all the propulsion is a significant factor for overall wear and tear on it and should length oil change intervals.
For some owners the ICE miles are much less than total miles on car.
I suspect that oil related mechanical issues are going to be extremely rare in Niro under 200,000 miles.
I plan to do my 1st change at 7,500, then probably double that (or more depending on ongoing forum feedback).
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Y
Dovidan said:
For some owners the ICE miles are much less than total miles on car.
Click to expand...
Only for some PHEV owners, and of course BEV owners. For HEV owners, all miles come from burning gasoline, even in EV.
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Dovidan
Really? Aren't some of the miles pure EV?
If that is the case, then I'm even more impressed with the Niro's ICE!
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Y
Dovidan said:
Really? Aren't some of the miles pure EV?
Click to expand...
Depends on your definition of "pure". I'd call pure EV plug in miles, untouched by the owner's gasoline. That is only possible in a BEV or PHEV. EV mode miles on an HEV can only come from gasoline, either charging the traction battery, or by gaining speed or elevation of which some of that expended energy is captured by regeneration.
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Roadkill401
I've had my Niro now for almost 2 years. Yes, the past 4 months had very little use with the Covid lockdown, but I that will likely be offset by a trip out to Quebec last year that wasn't a usual thing. Right now on Fuelly. I have a lifetime average of 5.1L/100km that covers both two winters and almost 2 summers of driving. In the cost I have spent about $875 worth on fuel and driven the car about 16500km.

Now I know on all my past cars that I was not getting nearly this fuel economy from the vehicles and looking back to the last car that I owned (the Ford Edge) I had actually spent far more dollars in just fuel alone for a single year than I have for the past two on this Nero. So far I've not had to spend anything on the upkeep as I got all the oil changes and care paid for two years when I purchased the vehicle.

Looking good so far.
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Dovidan
Yes, I understand that the battery power was generated almost exclusively as a result of ICE burning gas -- with a small addition for regen braking. But on a 30 mile drive urban drive, my impression is that the ICE would completely off during a significant portion (15-30%?) of that time. Thus during the time the ICE is off, the HEV is actually operating as a BEV. Thus the odometer reading doesn't accurately portray how many miles the ICE has been turning over.
Am I missing something ?
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Y
No, it is not operating as a BEV. A BEV gets its power from a plug, not burning gas in an attached internal combustion engine. It is an HEV which normally has moments with ICE off. At stop signs, going down a hill, and occasionally when the battery has a bit more charge than is needed.

Yes, the odometer measures miles driven, no matter if the engine is off sometimes. A lot of times the engine is on, and the motor is contributing torque, during acceleration and up a hill for example. Hence the hybrid title. Sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes both. But all the forward motion comes from gasoline, either directly, aided, or indirectly from stored potential energy - such as going up a hill. Engine off on the downhill is not additional energy, it came from climbing the hill.

You could make a claim that a PHEV is operating as a BEV, for EV miles driven derived from plug in energy received. All other miles, the motivation comes only from burning gasoline.
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atc98092
Dovidan said:
Yes, I understand that the battery power was generated almost exclusively as a result of ICE burning gas -- with a small addition for regen braking. But on a 30 mile drive urban drive, my impression is that the ICE would completely off during a significant portion (15-30%?) of that time. Thus during the time the ICE is off, the HEV is actually operating as a BEV. Thus the odometer reading doesn't accurately portray how many miles the ICE has been turning over.
Am I missing something ?
Click to expand...
Depends if you are talking about the PHEV or the HEV.

With the plug-in, yes it is entirely possible to drive purely in EV mode for about 30 miles, depending on terrain and driving technique. If you attempt to accelerate more than about 60% throttle, the ICE will fire for additional power. Now that's it's summer, I can go for days without the ICE ever firing up. In fact, it's been 5 weeks since I've filled the gas tank and the indicator still shows full and the display says I'm getting 700 MPG so far. :D

With the HEV, it is next to impossible to drive very far without the ICE. And even if you can get to your desired speed without the ICE, the battery will only last a couple of miles at best. So the ICE is running the majority of the time. Still, the Niro is an extremely efficient hybrid, and returns excellent MPG.

But your point about engine time vs. mileage is valid on a hybrid. But there's a big difference in the amount of variance between the HEV and the PHEV. I'm not going to make any guesstimates, but the PHEV can travel a significantly longer distance without the ICE running than a HEV can. Enough that the mileage recommendation for engine oil changes can likely be far longer for the PHEV. But since mine is leased, I'll just follow what they say.
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Jackfish
yticolev said:
The cost of ownership definitely includes fuel. The Niro has been getting almost double the mpg of my last car in most situations. That means my fuel cost is half, depending on relative gas price. You could also include some figure for reducing the the hassle of frequent fill ups. I get well over 600 miles per tank - best 701 miles - happened on a trip through Canada as it happens. New York to Ohio, made it through Canada without paying Canadian gas taxes.
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Yeah there would be no point in p
yticolev said:
The cost of ownership definitely includes fuel. The Niro has been getting almost double the mpg of my last car in most situations. That means my fuel cost is half, depending on relative gas price. You could also include some figure for reducing the the hassle of frequent fill ups. I get well over 600 miles per tank - best 701 miles - happened on a trip through Canada as it happens. New York to Ohio, made it through Canada without paying Canadian gas taxes.
Click to expand...
I agree it would be pointless to pay canadian taxes if you are ineligible to receive doctor visits , medical procedures etc without opening up you're wallet. I stand corrected you would have to show your provincial medical card.
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k7k6c7
mayhellitac said:
Hello!

Thanks for sharing this good info. I was curious to know how often do you have to do oil changes to the Kia Niro (regular hybrid model) and what's the average cost? When you calculate the cost of ownership of the car, do you count all gas consumption, oil changes, tire changes, repair maintenance, insurance, state inspections, etc? I am looking forward to buying a Kia Niro because my current cost of ownership of a 2005 Honda Element is averaging $5k to $6K per year. The things I love about the Niro besides its fuel efficiency is the reduced rate of emissions which is much better than my current drive.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
I bought my 2019 Kia Niro Hybrid the end of June 2020 (56km on) it. It had been set to change the oil at 6000 km. I ended up doing it just before the 6000 km at Midas in Kingston, Ontario for under $100. The dealer was going to be far more than that. I plan on alternating between the dealer and Midas while it's under warranty. This way the dealer will be giving it that little extra once over. I still have my 2011 Kia Rondo as "my little work horse" as I call it, :)
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