Quote:
Originally Posted by dmoolenaar
Not trying to break up the party but did you figure in sales tax, yearly registration/taxes and monthly insurance? How do those affect your bottom line?
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David - you are right to factor those. For me it works if gas is near $4/gal. At that price I save about $400 a month on Yukon fuel. My total average outlay was well over $500. Now it's well under $200 on average - approximately a $400 difference. My Honda payments are $175, but I put $6k down. It may not work for everyone. If you put on less miles than I do, you are proably better off taking the hit at the pump if you don't care about your "carbon footprint". I put a ton of miles on and here in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin, the taxes, registration, insurance, etc. aren't too bad. I also cut back from full coverage to liability only on the Yukon XL as it's value is under $5k - my cutoff point for full coverage. Obviously, had I disposed of the Yukon, I would be way ahead, but I still use it as a back up vehicle and hauling boats, bikes, people, etc which is worth something. One needs to factor the resale value of the Honda as well. It will hold it's value for a while. I'm pretty sure I could sell it for what I paid because there are waiting lists for the Fit, dealer mark-ups, and I just happened to get a discount. So, minus taxes and interest, I can recover much of the investment (relative to most cars - NOT my Porsche
) within the next 2 years should I choose to sell the car - which I doubt will happen.