Keeping a spreadsheet for your shitters..

[barefoot]

Only for fuel...

There's three other cars as well.

[RoverFolkUs]

1 hour ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

I took a leaf out of your book and made a spreadsheet. I have most of the paperwork in the car but since it's raining I'm not going out to get it, so some are estimates. I've had the car a year as of March and it's covered 10,000 miles with me. The air conditioning was by choice, so subtract the £47 and you're still left with the four figure sum. 

Moral of the story is - a ~15 year old car is realistically going to cost approx £1200 a year garage prices, that's what mine would have been if I was paying someone to do everything. 

Slight exception is Focus #1 - off the top of my head it's had a wheel bearing (£50) a spring (£25) full service kit (£60) oil service kit (£40) 3x tyres (£180) a battery (£75) and instrument cluster repair (£0!) in my 2.5 years ownership excluding 2x MOT test fees. Granted it's been off the road about a year now - so 20 months usage / 15k miles I make that £250 which is pretty damn impressive actually. With tyres it's £430 but I won't count tyres as they are consumable and have no reflection on the car, I'd be buying tyres anyway

[DSdriver]

I keep excel spreadsheets because I have a terrible memory, I grumble because I thought it had a new battery two years ago while in fact it was ten years and I thought it had an oil change last spring but it was actually the one before.

[Mally]

What's a spreadsheet?

[AnnoyingPentium]

3 minutes ago, RoverFolkUs said:

Moral of the story is - a ~15 year old car is realistically going to cost approx £1200 a year garage prices, that's what mine would have been if I was paying someone to do everything. 

Definitely. If I had the space and expertise then I'd have done it myself. Anyway, I've decided I shan't be keeping tabs on how much I've spent on the car and I'll just drive the fucker. Makes for better sleep at night. 🤣

[DaveDorson]

Probably worth mentioning, I don't have people work on my cars, so I don't ever factor in labour.. if I did none of my fleet would be affordable 😁

[RoverFolkUs]

17 minutes ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

Definitely. If I had the space and expertise then I'd have done it myself. Anyway, I've decided I shan't be keeping tabs on how much I've spent on the car and I'll just drive the fucker. Makes for better sleep at night. 🤣

If my spreadsheet said £2000 I wouldn't be bothered, I take each repair as it crops up, how much is it going to cost and is there anything else that's about to shit itself that I know of. 

If I satisfy myself with the answers to those questions, I'll order the parts and maybe get around to fitting them 6-48 months later 😂

[RoverFolkUs]

26 minutes ago, RoverFolkUs said:

Moral of the story is - a ~15 year old car is realistically going to cost approx £1200 a year garage prices, that's what mine would have been if I was paying someone to do everything. 

Slight exception is Focus #1 - off the top of my head it's had a wheel bearing (£50) a spring (£25) full service kit (£60) oil service kit (£40) 3x tyres (£180) a battery (£75) and instrument cluster repair (£0!) in my 2.5 years ownership excluding 2x MOT test fees. Granted it's been off the road about a year now - so 20 months usage / 15k miles I make that £250 which is pretty damn impressive actually. With tyres it's £430 but I won't count tyres as they are consumable and have no reflection on the car, I'd be buying tyres anyway

I should probably add to that - £1200 is your basic servicing and general repair costs. Of course if things like clutches, turbos, injectors etc are added into the equation it gets a lot more expensive very quickly

[garethj]

I’ve only got one car so I can generally keep it in my head.  MoT time is usually £2-300, a service is about the same and a couple of tyres a year is perhaps £150.  That’s around £700 a year but depreciation is usually £250 a year so it’s all good.

 I do a lot of miles so fuel costs are most important for me - around £2500.  The difference between 30mpg and 60mpg is very significant 

[AxWomble]

I’m totally incapable of using Excel so I have a little notebook into which I write down everything I’ve done to the car - mainly so I can keep track of what’s been done, how recently (important with oil changes, etc), but I don’t track the cost. It’s more for the benefit of the next owner to see that/how  it’s been cared for, although I doubt anyone outside this place would pay any heed to my scribblings. 
 

The car needs to be kept up, the cheapest car is the one you already own and I rarely do anything that isn’t necessary (snazzy foglights and wheel painting aside) so I don’t see much point tracking cost, providing it fits into our monthly household budget. 

[lesapandre]

22 hours ago, DaveDorson said:

Anyone else take this approach with their cars or is it just me?

 

It really started this year, I decided to take stock of what I've got "in" and how much each one is costing me to either get to a useable state, or to keep in a usable state in the case of the Mongdoggo.

 

It's quite scary how quickly things add up.. I'm not keeping one for the 72 beetle (I'll update that thread again soon) as it's terrifying, but the black "new beetle" has a running total of around £400 this year and is still to see a tester, the Mongdoggo has cost me £175 so far this year, although that does include converting it to massive front brakes and re-doing the rear discs and pads,  and it's still making an annoying clicking at the front and will need all four tyres replaced in the not too distant future.

 

I'll admit, part of the reason is because I'm taking my household budgeting a bit more seriously with the increase in the cost of living, and rationalising how much my storage etc is costing me, and making sure I don't over-spend on my leisure activities.. it also gives me a good way to "prove" to the director of household finances that me having a workshop is actually cheaper than me paying finance on a sensible car, and having someone else service it, even if it does mean occasionally she can't use my services for the weekend to dig more holes in the garden for plants, or go to some garden centre to buy yet more shit that she'll decide she doesn't want anymore in a few months and will cluttering up the place, but it's a proper eye opener as to just how expensive it is to keep your cars going.

Good point well made.

Information is power - ask any .com billionaire.

Is there any simpler alternative to Excel? Say an app. I run my life off two Android phones.

[Liggle]

I've always done it, track repairs, maintenance and depreciation but not fuel

[DSdriver]

39 minutes ago, Liggle said:

I've always done it, track repairs, maintenance and depreciation but not fuel

Is it possible to calculate minus fuckall in the depreciation column using Excel?

[DaveDorson]

2 hours ago, lesapandre said:

Good point well made.

Information is power - ask any .com billionaire.

Is there any simpler alternative to Excel? Say an app. I run my life off two Android phones.

you could probably do something similar with google spreadsheets of some sort I'm sure.

[lesapandre]

1 hour ago, DSdriver said:

Is it possible to calculate minus fuckall in the depreciation column using Excel?

Well if you factored in the depreciation on a standard average car and then subtracted that from your old cars costs - you could find yourself running a + surplus.

[Dyslexic Viking]

Depreciation on new cars is something many people do not think about. One of my uncles who is an accountant buys or leases a new car every 3 years and he calculated that with depreciation service insurance and everything, he spends an average of 70,000 kroner (5959 pounds) per year on having a car. In comparison, I gave 79,000 kroner (6725 pounds) for my Hyundai and I expected at the purchase to get 15+ years out of it. I find what my uncle does crazy and even if I could afford it I would not do what he does.

But will not derail the thread anymore. But I'm really considering starting to write down all of the expenses and fuel consumption on the Hyundai that could be interesting to follow year after year.

[DaveDorson]

I paid £600 for the new beetle and to get one with 12 months MOT today will cost me about a grand.  Granted I've not MOTd it yet but it'll pass once the sills are done.  For my money I'll probably need to put new shocks on it, go through the brakes, service it etc, and eventually replace the outer sills because of rust (TADTS).

For MOT prep it's had a set of steel wheels and good rubber at a cost of £50.  To be fair I didn't need to do this but the old rubber was perished, some budget 205 50 17s for the after market cup clones would run be £260 for some rain sports from camskill and I'd fit and balance myself.  I need to take the alloys off to refurb so the steels will serve a purpose.

Sills were £70 a pair.. at that price I'll just replace them, they aren't bad to do and it's holed from use of a jack.  The inner sill is in good order and there's still all the strength there.  Yes I need to weld them in and paint it but that's fine, I wanted to do some corrections anyway to tidy it up as it picked up some damage when it was on the FILs driveway.

Some rear coilover adjusters to properly seat the rear springs (it was low yO!) At the cost of £5 and some fuel, this means I can prevent it being slammed on its hind too.  Nice.

The car has had new coilovers fitted just before it was laid up, they are leak free and adjust freely, the springs are in good order, as are the top mounts.

Balljoints are good, track rod ends good, CVs and boots are good, needed to replace a steering rack boot so did this at the cost of £10.00 or so, bought a pair, only did the side that was damaged.  Wasn't really difficult to be fair.

The discs were a bit lippy but the pads recent so I replaced the discs, £60 and some change, and have me the chance to check how the rest of the rubber and that at the front end of the car was.

I've purchased but not fitted some new SAI pump mounts, backing plates and rear wheel bearings, wheel bearings are good and will replace the splash guard plates if that changes.

I replaced the rear caliper but shortly after doing this managed to fix the old one. 🙄😂

New wiper blades at £6.00, a few bulbs and some fluids at around a tenner.  Oh a battery at £40 before I moved it as it was goosed.

I need to do the cam belt and water pump, this will be about £90 for parts but it's done then, I also need to remove and refit the exhaust as it's leaking due to being a bit crusty in places.  It goes away when it gets warm so it's not blowing that badly.

I don't factor in my own labour because I enjoy it and it's done on my leisure time, and I've stored the car for 5 years rent free.  For most people the scrap value vs the fix costs mean this won't have been a viable repair but I'll get use of a car out of it, and now I can back up the man maths with figures for the director of household finance.

Absolutely not worth it.. because when all is said and done not only have I spent my own time, money and energy on sorting the car, I will then have a 2000 2.0 8v new beetle that I am free to jump in and drive without any reason not to, when I could have scrapped it, pocketed the money and not spent that time, energy, money etc on making my life and our roads more miserable 🤣

 

But at least I will have a record of what the damn thing owes me financially.

 

[bangernomics]

I used to do this after deciding I wanted to be part of the FIRE movement. So I used spend and income sheets to a ruthless degree. Always referred vehicles value and cost vs scrap values and tried to keep to my mantra of bangernomics when I absolutely had to. Then it became a habit and now I’m easing off a bit now. Still love a shite banger etc.

[New POD]

On 04/05/2022 at 12:41, Mally said:

What's a spreadsheet?

Essential to running a multinational cream* of British manufacturing industry East Midlands Jet and Nuclear propulsion company. 

Never seen so many bespoke spreadsheets, with macros that occassionally* fall over. 

 

Rolls Royce Plc. 

 

 

[straightSix]

I used to. Only because I was forced to get something sensible and wanted to see a cost per mile, including things like insurace/tax/fuel/repairs/depreciation etc. Mainly to make owning something so boring more interesting.

Nowadays I don't bother. I once added up how much I pay in tax per year in my head and that's as far as I went. Any repairs, I'll write the date and milage down on the recept and stick it with the service history

[Roverageous]

Ah - my thread has arrived! I do this, especially on the low mileage 75, so I have a 'Full Service History' if I wanted to sell in the future...