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I'm doing some financing for our future (my wife and I), and we want to purchase a used car - we'll be getting a loan, but along with the monthly payments we'll be making, we want to know what the 'real cost' each month will be for paying for this car - maintenance, gas, sales tax, and monthly insurance premiums (For New York State, Albany County).
How can I find out what these 'additional' costs will be when looking to buy a car?
How can I find out what these 'additional' costs will be when looking to buy a car?
If you know what model you're interested in buying you can try out Edmund's True Cost To Own calculator. This will estimate the depreciation, taxes and fees, financing costs, fuel costs, insurance premiums, maintenance, repairs, and any tax credits for owning a certain model for various periods of time. You can improve the accuracy be substituting your own calculations, like if you already have an insurance quote.
Consumer Reports has a useful chart to demonstrate how much each of those additional costs will add up, percentage-wise. They also list the most and least expensive cars to own.
