Commuting

[MickeyDBC]

I drive a Ram diesel with the cowbar front end. Gets 19 on the highway and 16 in town. Got a glancing headon from a Hyundai last month and ended up with a fender ding, a scraped running board, and a missing centercap on one wheel. Hyundai lost the front end, drivers side front wheel and suspension, and gouged and ripped down the whole side. If the Ranch Hand front end on mine had not deflected the hyundai he probably would have gone under my truck. He got a little banged up but walked away and I just have a little aggravation but walked away too. If that had been my wife's car or even the Tahoe I think it would have been a different story. I will put up with a little less than stellar mileage for safety on the backroads.

 

[Dftodd]

I have a 12 mile commute to work. So I drive the truck. My wife drives the jeep wrangler since she has the 49 mile commute to work.

If it was reversed and I had the commute and my wife worked in town, then we would be swapping vehicles and she would be driving the truck

 

[jwstewar]

I ran the numbers for a long time when I first started commuting back and forth to work and they didn't work out until about '99-2000 when the fuel really started going up in price. That happens to also be the time I got married. So my wife and I swapped vehicles. She drove my '99 Silverado 1500 around town and I drove her '97 Honda Accord. I drove it until Dec. '07 when it had 252k miles on it and I hit a deer - 2 weeks after dropping it to liability insurance. Traded it to my buddy that runs a junk yard for a '2000 Accord w/ 71k miles and a salvaged title. Ran that until November last year. Sold it with 310k miles on it after I bought a Hyundai Elantra w/ 71k miles from him also with a salvage title. By the way, Still have the '99 Silverado. It now has about 148k miles on it. Just bought a 2017 Silverado 2500HD w/ the Duramax. Once I get the '99 cleaned up and cleaned out we will be putting it up for sale even though my son wants it.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Depreciation. If you drive more than 50 miles a day, depreciation can be your biggest factor. Much more than gas.

Go buy a new car for $20,000 Or a new truck for $45,000

Then drive it 36,000 miles a year for 6 years. (216,000 miles)

What's it worth with 216,000 miles at the end of your 72nd payment?

Not much.

 

[crashz]

Since the beginning of January I have put 27,000 miles on my commuter car. Been to New Jersey, New York City, Maryland all a few times plus my daily 150 mile round trip commute to the office. All work miles. Some of it reimbursed.

The CRV has been absolutely great, if this were my gas powered 2500, I'd literally be wearing it out for nothing. And costing a fortune in gas. With a commuter (I've had a few) and my dump truck, the pickup has not seen winter duty in 4 years. That goes a long way to preserving it in New England. Lots of benefits for me, but definitely not a solution for everyone.

 

[bigtiller]

Since Mrs.tiller snookered me into buying her a new Malibu last summer we have been using it for all of our errands. The 2007 - 3/4 GMC was driven for 1100 miles since November last year, 8 months. It just turned over 55000 miles.

 

[herm0016]

i drive a truck everyday too, but I love my truck. gets 18 mpg, not bad. we use the car for most of our errands and my wife's commute, avg over 200 mpg so that makes up for it. we love our Chevy volt. she fills up the 9 gallon tank less than once a month.

i cant imagine not having the truck. we use it at least once a week for its truck capabilities, and there is no way we could get the 2 adults and 2 kids plus stuff for a weekend, or the 250 lbs of dogs to the vet/groomer.

 

[PJSprog]

I used to drive a Jeep Liberty. Was getting about 20-ish mpg. That was OK when I was making ridiculous aerospace money. However, when I was no longer making that ridiculous money, it became an issue. I was spending about $100/week on gasoline just for my 120 mile round trip daily commute. We decided it was time for that vehicle to go when it started becoming a maintenance money pit, too. Bought a new Kia Soul in 2014, and that's been my commuter car ever since. My commute is down to 80-ish miles round trip now, but even when it was still 120 mile I was seeing a $40-50 savings each week in fuel expense.

I've always liked little cars, so the transition didn't bother me at all. My Wife doesn't like them, though, and still prefers her SUV (Kia Sorento). We also have an older '03 F-150 that is basically the farm truck. It pretty much only gets driven on weekends. I couldn't imagine using that as an everyday commuter vehicle.

 

[NoTrespassing]

i drive a truck everyday too, but I love my truck. gets 18 mpg, not bad. we use the car for most of our errands and my wife's commute, avg over 200 mpg so that makes up for it. we love our Chevy volt. she fills up the 9 gallon tank less than once a month.

i cant imagine not having the truck. we use it at least once a week for its truck capabilities, and there is no way we could get the 2 adults and 2 kids plus stuff for a weekend, or the 250 lbs of dogs to the vet/groomer.

How much was the Volt? Electric still didn't make sense for me the last time I checked. The Accent I drive was $12,500 before tax/title. I've saved over $12,000 in gas alone over a 20mpg pickup since I bought it. I've saved more than that in depreciation.

If I could get an electric vehicle with a 200 mile range @ minus 10F that charges in less than 8 hours for under $20K I'd consider it for my next commuter.

Kevin

 

[herm0016]

How much was the Volt? Electric still didn't make sense for me the last time I checked. The Accent I drive was $12,500 before tax/title. I've saved over $12,000 in gas alone over a 20mpg pickup since I bought it. I've saved more than that in depreciation.

If I could get an electric vehicle with a 200 mile range @ minus 10F that charges in less than 8 hours for under $20K I'd consider it for my next commuter.

Kevin

IF ONLY!

haha. I would never buy an Accent, in-fact not many cars under what we paid for a Volt with most of the options, slightly used would pass my muster. everything we were looking at was in a similar price range, paid around 20k. for a car with 25k miles on it. Now has 70k and we have changed the oil two or 3 times, bought a set of snows and wheels and replaced the original tires. It drives very well, is comfortable and we use very little gas. The volt is very well engineered and there are cars out there with very little battery degradation even after 500k miles. its a tank with snow tires in the winter, tackles 12k feet of elevation with no issues and saves gas. Not much will touch the total cost of ownership by the time its ready for the great scrap heap, which is generally how long we keep things. you can pick up a used volt for around 10 or 12 now. we get about 30 miles range in the winter and 45 in the summer. charging with 220 at home takes about 4 hrs for a depleted battery but we can get enough range to go to dinner by plugging in for an hr between work and going out. the brilliant thing about this car is the gas generator at about 40 mpg. we were able to take the car on a 4k mile road trip and get 40 mpg, come home and go back to not using any gas at all. this equates to the volts actually going more miles on electric only over time, because you can us it for every trip and not have to worry about the range.