Time for Fuelly to Step It Up?
 

I really like tracking my vehicles on Fuelly, but there's one area I feel is seriously lacking and that is cost of ownership. There's a statistic that shows the fuel costs per mile but it would be so much more useful to me if I can also track all vehicle costs to get a true cost of ownership.

For example: my Jetta gets over 43 mpg, but it costs $200 to change the oil every 10,000 miles. That's worth 2¢ per mile all by itself!!! Add the $800 transmission service at 40,000 miles and there's another 2¢!!! All of a sudden when I add just two maintenance checks my cost per mile is actually 11¢ instead of 7¢. Compare that with a gas and go used beater and a person can easily find a true economy car isn't necessarily the one with the best fuel mileage.

It's all about recording data to have information that peeps can use to add to their own knowledge to make wiser decisions. I'm actually at the point now of creating my own data environment for this since I haven't found a good source for it already. I'd much rather have and use a data repository such as this to accomplish this goal.

I feel a little this way too, fuel costs are a small part of owning a car. Road tax, insurance, servicing, depreciation, repairs etc etc all add up. For previous cars, I've estimated all those things to give me a rough idea. I did find a website that gives a "whole life cost" in pence per mile, and estimates everything bar insurance (personal and regional circumstances affect premiums too much) for 3 years of ownership. Not 100% accurate but good for comparing different cars.

Some other costs include tires, say $600 for a set of tires which last 60,000 miles. That's another cent per mile. If your car uses specialty tires (think Corvette) those costs can be a lot higher. Brake shoes or pads, shock absorbers, batteries (usually changed out by time, not mileage), washing and/or waxing, parking fees depending on where you live or work, road tolls depending on where you drive, and so on.

Do you have/use GasTracker? You can add Services for tracking there.
We'll soon have a better tracking method for Service on the web side as well.

Let's not forget that hyper milers also save on tyre costs, brake costs, and general repairs.

On the flip side, I like the simplicity and ease of use of fuelly. It could get very overcomplicated if too much information were to be displayed.

Yeah, good idea but tricky to apply. I always drove £500 beaters (but called them bangers!). Used to get mid 50s UK mpg for old diesels, expected to spend around £4-500 a year for two years on MoT and repairs before the scrapyard claimed them. £200 a year tax, £5- £10 worn tyres, odd £50 oil change. Then I got a Rover...£200 a month in the garage, for 9 months...! That's what made me get my first new car, this i20. If old cars could be that costly (and only 46 mpg) then I reasoned for a similar monthly cost I could drive a reliable new car doing much better mileage (claimed 96, actual 64!).