As a "senior citizen" and AARP member, I get a monthly "AARP bulletin" -- something in the same format as your Sunday newspaper Parade magazine, but with about 60 pages.
The May 2021 edition provided the following informational insert:
The statistics are only as good as the detail they provide, and while these averages are useful, they mention nothing about insurance costs, "Used versus New" or "Labor" expense.
Even so, applying optional assumptions, we can still make personal comparisons with the numbers.
Let's take the distinction of "New" versus "Used" car-owners first. Are there different categories of new car-owners? I'll leave that for someone else adding to the discussion.
Based on personal experience only, I suggest that there are at least three categories of used car-owners.
There are those who bought a new car, and keep it as a used one because they don't want to buy another new one.
Then, there are people whose pocketbooks and priorities -- or just their common sense -- incline them to buy a used or "pre-owned" vehicle. Eventually, when something goes wrong and costs them -- say -- $1,000, they either sell it, or they junk it, and then go out and buy another "beater" -- another used car. Or -- they buy a new car.
I had one very good friend who was a very practical person, who had bought a 1987 Isuzu Trooper to supplement his "great-outdoors" needs. He kept this vehicle until the year 2000. In fact, he was going to continue keeping it along with his brand-new Nissan XTerra, until I visited him in Albuquerque in 2000 and asked him how much he wanted for it. He wanted $1,000, and I asked him what needed repair. It needed a new CV-joint boot -- which, even in those days, meant that the repair-shop would merely replace the entire CV-joint with new boot because it was easier and no more expensive than pulling the old transaxle, taking it apart and replacing the boot. I continued my relocation trip to CA and returned a month later to pick up the 87 Trooper with a $1,000 check and a NAPA neoprene "split-boot" repair -- a half-hour in trouble. When he saw what I'd done, he said "Gee! If I'd known you could do that, I wouldn't have sold you the Trooper!"
Finally, there is the used-car fanatic or extremist. Like Charlton Heston and his Weatherby bolt-action rifle, the extremist says he won't give up his old car until someone has to pry it from his cold, dead hands.
That's me.
And what's this all about? Score-keeping. Score-keeping is an accounting exercise. Suppose you run a repair-shop. I'm not trying to confuse things with the example -- it could easily be a pizza-parlor or 31-Flavors Baskin-Robbins franchise. You want to know "How am I doing?" How you are doing is best discovered by keeping a good book-keeping and accounting system -- the backbone of any business. And if you're a smart car-owner who doesn't have deep pockets to savor spending big-bucks on a fancy ride, you'd still apply the same principles.
Which -- I think I do . . .
OK -- so we don't know whether AARP has included labor charges for parts-replacement, and we don't know if they've included insurance charges in the overall cost of vehicle ownership.
In the last 20 years, I've needlessly wasted about $3,500 in expenses on my old SUV. "Wasted" simply means that I was either guilty of owner-negligence (failing to pay attention to the transmission warning light), or gullible enough at this or that point in time to accept a mis-diagnosis and unnecessary repair expense ("You need new valve-cover gaskets" was the last episode. The oil was coming from a worn drain plug -- not the valve cover gaskets).
In addition to the wasted money, there is discretionary expense of adding features to a car. New (hard to find!) grill-guard -- $500. Sound-system make-over plus Wi-Fi backup camera, Android tablet and MP3 player -- $400.
Over twenty years, my monthly insurance costs have been $75/month. Over the last 4 years, I've spent $4,700 in repairs and maintenance. Given the mileage I've put on the car since 2018, none of this would've affected "drive-ability" today -- right now. There's an additional outlay for the grill-guard, sound-system and fog-lights -- $1,050. Two weeks ago, I bought new tires for $700: the old ones may have had two more years of tread, but they were 8 years old.
Excluding these latter outlays, but INCLUDING the insurance bill, my monthly expense is $170. If you add fuel to my own equation, that works out to about $225/month. Different folks, different strokes, different mileage, different states, different gas-prices. I live in California. INCLUDING the unnecessary and discretionary outlays, my "look-over-the-shoulder" outlays yields something about $50 lower than the Alaskan average. I don't have any snow-mobiles, sled-dogs, canoes, snow-shoes -- or oil-industry subsidies.
It has been a long journey -- a journey that has taken me almost exactly 100,000 miles. I like it. I like it so much, I almost don't care about the score-keeping anymore.
But I still ask "How am I doing?" How am I doing in the business of keeping myself wrapped in a comfortable ride -- a rolling concert hall -- an upgraded B-52 with GPS, voice-recognition and voice navigation?
Certainly, I'm doing better than the first category of used-car owner, aren't I? And I'm doing better than the average car-owner (= (USED+NEW)/ALASKA_CENSUS) ) in Alaska.
But like I said -- I could almost not give-a-shit. I've located again a third "solid-gold mechanic" or repair shop. [The first two got old and retired, like I got old and retired.] We have an "understanding" at this point. I'll likely be dead and in my grave ten years from now, only adding another 30,000 miles to a car which -- likely -- won't require more than a new timing-belt/water-pump over that time.
And -- surely -- I'm an "Extremist". I'm waiting in the meantime to find out what Suburu will offer as an answer to the Ford Mustang Mach-E, and I'm counting my money -- knowing I could afford the Mach-E and its insurance bill if I buy one this year.
Maybe Suburu will come through next year or the following year. Maybe I'll just decide on one last fling in my sunset years, and get that Mach-E. Maybe gasoline prices will rise to $15/gallon, and I'll HAVE to get that Suburu or a used Mach-E.
On the other hand, what's the use of spending $50,000, only to have the CA DMV tell me "Your eyes are shot, your memory is shot -- you'll need to get a 'senior ID' instead of a driver's-license"?
The May 2021 edition provided the following informational insert:
The statistics are only as good as the detail they provide, and while these averages are useful, they mention nothing about insurance costs, "Used versus New" or "Labor" expense.
Even so, applying optional assumptions, we can still make personal comparisons with the numbers.
Let's take the distinction of "New" versus "Used" car-owners first. Are there different categories of new car-owners? I'll leave that for someone else adding to the discussion.
Based on personal experience only, I suggest that there are at least three categories of used car-owners.
There are those who bought a new car, and keep it as a used one because they don't want to buy another new one.
Then, there are people whose pocketbooks and priorities -- or just their common sense -- incline them to buy a used or "pre-owned" vehicle. Eventually, when something goes wrong and costs them -- say -- $1,000, they either sell it, or they junk it, and then go out and buy another "beater" -- another used car. Or -- they buy a new car.
I had one very good friend who was a very practical person, who had bought a 1987 Isuzu Trooper to supplement his "great-outdoors" needs. He kept this vehicle until the year 2000. In fact, he was going to continue keeping it along with his brand-new Nissan XTerra, until I visited him in Albuquerque in 2000 and asked him how much he wanted for it. He wanted $1,000, and I asked him what needed repair. It needed a new CV-joint boot -- which, even in those days, meant that the repair-shop would merely replace the entire CV-joint with new boot because it was easier and no more expensive than pulling the old transaxle, taking it apart and replacing the boot. I continued my relocation trip to CA and returned a month later to pick up the 87 Trooper with a $1,000 check and a NAPA neoprene "split-boot" repair -- a half-hour in trouble. When he saw what I'd done, he said "Gee! If I'd known you could do that, I wouldn't have sold you the Trooper!"
Finally, there is the used-car fanatic or extremist. Like Charlton Heston and his Weatherby bolt-action rifle, the extremist says he won't give up his old car until someone has to pry it from his cold, dead hands.
That's me.
And what's this all about? Score-keeping. Score-keeping is an accounting exercise. Suppose you run a repair-shop. I'm not trying to confuse things with the example -- it could easily be a pizza-parlor or 31-Flavors Baskin-Robbins franchise. You want to know "How am I doing?" How you are doing is best discovered by keeping a good book-keeping and accounting system -- the backbone of any business. And if you're a smart car-owner who doesn't have deep pockets to savor spending big-bucks on a fancy ride, you'd still apply the same principles.
Which -- I think I do . . .
OK -- so we don't know whether AARP has included labor charges for parts-replacement, and we don't know if they've included insurance charges in the overall cost of vehicle ownership.
In the last 20 years, I've needlessly wasted about $3,500 in expenses on my old SUV. "Wasted" simply means that I was either guilty of owner-negligence (failing to pay attention to the transmission warning light), or gullible enough at this or that point in time to accept a mis-diagnosis and unnecessary repair expense ("You need new valve-cover gaskets" was the last episode. The oil was coming from a worn drain plug -- not the valve cover gaskets).
In addition to the wasted money, there is discretionary expense of adding features to a car. New (hard to find!) grill-guard -- $500. Sound-system make-over plus Wi-Fi backup camera, Android tablet and MP3 player -- $400.
Over twenty years, my monthly insurance costs have been $75/month. Over the last 4 years, I've spent $4,700 in repairs and maintenance. Given the mileage I've put on the car since 2018, none of this would've affected "drive-ability" today -- right now. There's an additional outlay for the grill-guard, sound-system and fog-lights -- $1,050. Two weeks ago, I bought new tires for $700: the old ones may have had two more years of tread, but they were 8 years old.
Excluding these latter outlays, but INCLUDING the insurance bill, my monthly expense is $170. If you add fuel to my own equation, that works out to about $225/month. Different folks, different strokes, different mileage, different states, different gas-prices. I live in California. INCLUDING the unnecessary and discretionary outlays, my "look-over-the-shoulder" outlays yields something about $50 lower than the Alaskan average. I don't have any snow-mobiles, sled-dogs, canoes, snow-shoes -- or oil-industry subsidies.
It has been a long journey -- a journey that has taken me almost exactly 100,000 miles. I like it. I like it so much, I almost don't care about the score-keeping anymore.
But I still ask "How am I doing?" How am I doing in the business of keeping myself wrapped in a comfortable ride -- a rolling concert hall -- an upgraded B-52 with GPS, voice-recognition and voice navigation?
Certainly, I'm doing better than the first category of used-car owner, aren't I? And I'm doing better than the average car-owner (= (USED+NEW)/ALASKA_CENSUS) ) in Alaska.
But like I said -- I could almost not give-a-shit. I've located again a third "solid-gold mechanic" or repair shop. [The first two got old and retired, like I got old and retired.] We have an "understanding" at this point. I'll likely be dead and in my grave ten years from now, only adding another 30,000 miles to a car which -- likely -- won't require more than a new timing-belt/water-pump over that time.
And -- surely -- I'm an "Extremist". I'm waiting in the meantime to find out what Suburu will offer as an answer to the Ford Mustang Mach-E, and I'm counting my money -- knowing I could afford the Mach-E and its insurance bill if I buy one this year.
Maybe Suburu will come through next year or the following year. Maybe I'll just decide on one last fling in my sunset years, and get that Mach-E. Maybe gasoline prices will rise to $15/gallon, and I'll HAVE to get that Suburu or a used Mach-E.
On the other hand, what's the use of spending $50,000, only to have the CA DMV tell me "Your eyes are shot, your memory is shot -- you'll need to get a 'senior ID' instead of a driver's-license"?
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