AA says is now costs €12,000/yr to run a car..........

My approx running costs on my 1.9 Diesel

3576 - Finance
3150 - Fuel
500 - Insurance
614 - Tax
1000 - Maintenance

Approx €8840 - Wow never added it up like that :eek:

Voodoomelon wrote: »

Surely they have depreciation built in too, and maybe forgot to mention it?

Last time I did the sums, our '06 Mini Cooper only cost €4.5 K a year. They're supposedly pricing something 1.25 to 1.5 litres, so they must be running a newer model than our Mini, and doing a lot more mileage.

€11K is a bit silly, though, even our '08 S-Max only cost €15K, and that's a newish 2 litre bus averaging 40K km a year.

Some serious b0llocks being peddled by the AA yet again.

€7k a year in finance/depreciation?

5 year finance say

€7k 5 years is €35k. That's assuming the car is worth nothing after 5 years.

Even if you assumed the car was worth the same as the interest paid after 5 years then you're still looking at a €35k new car.



Maybe I'm deprived or something but I don't regard 35k as being an average car. I would have thought an octavia/focus etc.would be closer to the mark - I.e half that price and not as prone to depreciation anyway.

And that's before you get to the fact that most people don't buy new cars.


Is this a plea on behalf of 11 reg 320d man? What planet is conor faughnan or whoever came up with this living on?

I'd hazzard a guess that most 09/10/11 reg cars on the road are heavily financed. €450 a month would be reasonable for a €25k car with interest built in.

I make that about €10,500 tops. (Also, €1000 a year on maintenance in this country, please...).

They're not too far off the mark anyways. Even people who are driving around 06/07 cars are still paying through the hole for finance leased 5 years ago.

More hyperbolic trash from Conor Faughan. I've no idea where he got his figures from. He was on RTE radio this morning and said the figures were based on tha average 1.2-1.5l petrol car. On the site they have this...........:

http://blog.aaireland.ie/index.php/2011/08/08/cost-of-motoring/motoring-costs-up-5-8-in-2011
The AA calculations show that a car that achieves 30 miles per gallon (9.5 litres per 100kms) and does 16000 kilometres per year will use 1500 litres of fuel. Last year that cost worked out at €2,000. In 2011 the cost is €2,301.

.......now what 1.5l car uses that much petrol. My 01 Scenic uses 8.5l when driven hard with a lot of baggage, but driven normally its average over the year is about 7.5l.

so then there is tax at €333 for a 1.4, NCT is spread over 2 years, the last four years I havent spent money on anything except bulbs, wipers, oil changes and tyres.

So the rest id depreciation and finance? the average car is not spanking brand new, its 5-6 years old, so its depreciation is hardly even €1500 p.a. The depreciation on mine is probably €0 at the moment but its lost €11-12k over 8 years so lets say €1500 p.a.

Some people use finance, a lot don't so try averaging that out Mr Faughan and you'll get nowhere near €11,800, or would you care to put up a proper breakdown of the figures?

On top of that he permanently uses petrol cars, surely he should consider people use diesels as well and give an average between the two figures.

He was always a bit prone to a mix of hyperbole, exaggeration and plain bull****, something he should consider as a head of a private organisation that seems to get above average air time. BTW stop claiming to represent all motorists Mr Faughan because you don't.

Voodoomelon wrote: »

I'd hazzard a guess that most 09/10/11 reg cars on the road are heavily financed. €450 a month would be reasonable for a €25k car with interest built in.

Most cars sold in 09/10 would not be financed, or financed for very little. Remember the banks were giving out very little credit at that time.

On top of this you would almost never use a €25k loan to buy a €25k car, there would usually be a trade in involved. Yes there are exceptions, but it was a tiny minority of people in those years who bought a car on 100% finance for €25k.

Faughan also said its based on the average motorist. The average motorist buys a second hand car, not new so it costs even less.

The figures should be based on an 06 Focus/Golf 1.6 doing 19,000 km per year. The AA needs to explain how they got to those figures, because most of us believe its total boll0x what they are saying.

If the AA had any credibility in the first place, it would be in tatters right now. €7k in depreciation / finance PA, lol, fools and their money are easilly parted.

A 1.2 to 1.5 engined car that's in band c is going to be a petrol, it'd be a disapointing diesel to not make band b at the very least. It'll do in or about 40mpg on paper, so spending €2300 on petrol would mean they'd cover ~13k miles in the year max, so nothing outrageous there.

You'd need to spend €20k on a car, entirely financed at 10%pa, trading in after 12 months at €15k and starting again to incur those kinds of costs on that kind of car. Anybody chosing to do that is welcome to do whatever they want, but shouldn't expect sympathy from the general public.

Just remember guys that the AA are talking about the "average" motorist, not the average "boarsdie that regularly frequents the boards motors forum" who have an active interest in motoring.
if you think about it there are lots of things that someone who is an enthusiast & capable can drive the same car as his clueless (in motoring terms) next door neighbour for significantly less money. Some people woudl struggle to change a bulb never mind service their own car or complete other maintenance.

Tigger wrote: »

their figures are crazy

they said a small car so lets say 6.5 l/100km

Seriously though - assuming a 1.2-1.5L car gets 36+ mpg is silly - Unless you're assuming they're brand spanking new, and even then... I get 24-28 from a 1.4 if lucky.

insurance on such a car can't be over €600

I wish there was such a thing as blanket insurance, where age, sex, NCB and everything else was irrelavent. This isn't the case though - Is it? Another very silly assumption tbh

Jaysus this is depressing but my car costs ~€7,250 a year

why are people bitching about this ? the AA are trying to make a point to the government that the levies on fuel etc are too much and that people need cars so are not paying for things such as health insurance instead because of the high price of running a car.

I don't care if the AA claim it costs 50k per annum - let them embellish the figures all they want as long as they get some sort of point across to the powers that be - "we are being ripped off and people have no choice but to pay it !"