Cost of ownership.

And reduced cost frees up "fun money". more time camping if that's where your focus is. I Snowmobile, ATV, RV travel, off road, and drag race, fish and hunt. Ignoring costs means that I could be wasting money. Do I have it to waste? Maybe yes, maybe no. Pretending it doesn't matter, is kooky.

If you are really hard on your stuff, you'd be surprised how newer equipment is not much more costly. If you take good care of your stuff, buy quality, and don't beat on it, there is value in keeping it longer.

Case and point, my TV also has nitrous and runs 12 second quarter miles. How long should I keep it lol.

AAA has a download entitled, Your Driving Costs. Fill out the calculator.

A "new" 4WD one ton Diesel is going to be 70-cpm (probably higher) at 15k miles per year given five years of ownership. Above $10,000-annually as a minimum. $12k is more realistic for the truck cited.

Fuel cost is roughly one half annual expense.

Where the cost of diesel is 20% greater than gasoline, there's no savings on fuel with choosing diesel. The diesel advantage is about work, and possibly about engine life once past 200k miles.

The real questions are about length of ownership. Both TV & TT.

My folks bought new. Had one TT and two TVs over 27-years (by choice) that were also my Dads DD. About 400k miles on those vehicles and full timed not quite ten years after early retirement. So, bought in their late 40's and sold in their mid-70s.

This justified buying far better than a white box of a TT. Their Silver Streak I think had an awning replaced and one AC unit. Might have been more, I just don't remember. Point was that with both, they were paid for long before a change was made or repairs needed. The quality was such that little was needed. Indefinite life span. That TT is now more than forty years old and still on the road.

I couldn't afford new, so bought a 3-yr old CTD, and a 22-year old Silver Streak barely used. Under $30k together. Get 15-mpg average towing this 35', 21-mpg overall annual average. Less than $500 in repairs in ten years. Trailer needs more, and if I spent $10k plus I'd still be ahead versus sale value.

Trying to say, look at both vehicles. Have a plan. Like setting a WD hitch, use real numbers. Be comprehensive. Longest life and highest reliability at lowest cost was what I wanted and got.

Helped that I'm third generation and understood this before vehicle spec (as a ten year old Airstream has flatlined in depreciation yet is better than any brand new square white box AND doesn't require a truck; further dropping costs several thousand per year), knowing ahead of time that saving on purchase plus TV fuel burn would save $3k annually over 20-years pays for the approach.

There's plenty to play with. The actual cost of your RV? Nights aboard versus years of ownership. Plug that in with a whiskey shot at hand. Five or six years is painful. Fifteen to twenty isn't.

By comprehensive, I mean look at also being able to park under cover. Garage preferably. Add that in. Construction. Sell the four bedroom house and get something that reflects prudence. If camping is important, make it so.

Since these discussions always tend to touch on fuel, learn -- be willing to change habits -- to alter DD so as to offset vacation travel expense. It's not hard.

CPM is a basic business tool. Use it.

The knuckle-dragger approach is thinking it's the monthly finance note and weekly fuel bill.

But no matter where one starts, cpm is a road to reduced cost.

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My Dad bought a new loaded up Ram in 2004. He paid 41k for it and still has it. I think it has about 80k miles on it. My guess is he could sell it for 25k now. I think his maintenance and repairs has been about 6k. That works out to .28 per mile.

moresmoke wrote:
4x4ord, you've done very well.

My 2008 F350 gasser is about $0.28/mile ownership. And about $0.30 for gas. Plus insurance, tags and maintenance on top of that.

I have a Jeep Wrangler that I use for work travel. Capital cost is $0.14 and all other expenses are $0.25/mile.

I was lucky... the 2011 was a very unique opportunity. I owned the truck for 5 years and put 96k miles on it for $15k in depreciation. My 2016 is a little different story.... it's more like $.35/mile for depreciation maintenance and repairs.

4x4ord, you've done very well.

My 2008 F350 gasser is about $0.28/mile ownership. And about $0.30 for gas. Plus insurance, tags and maintenance on top of that.

I have a Jeep Wrangler that I use for work travel. Capital cost is $0.14 and all other expenses are $0.25/mile.

Grit dog wrote:


the cost of ownership was something I was always super concerned about when a single vehicle made up a significant portion of my net worth......and I still am, because that's how part of my net worth has grown. By not making blind, uninformed purchases.

I agree that cost of ownership doesn't become meaningless as your net worth grows. It might actually become more concerning. An 18 year old might have a $4500 truck that represents half his net worth and he isn't the least bit concerned about cost of ownership. On the other hand a 60 year old retiree might have a $70,000 truck that represents 3% of his net worth and yet he could be very concerned about cost of ownership.

Hybridhunter wrote:
Wow - come one come all knuckle draggers....
Knowledge is power, whether you care of not, it is useful to know. But on this site, rampant over-buying, and over-spending, in the absence of reason is just how a disproportionate number of people on this site roll. That's why every other thread is about "buying more truck than you need", or buying a diesel.

And if you don't know what you don't know, then it's easier to say "I don't care" than to figure it out.

The folks in this thread are the types that reject information for anecdotes.....

I agree with you to an extent, regarding this forum, but the cost of ownership was something I was always super concerned about when a single vehicle made up a significant portion of my net worth......and I still am, because that's how part of my net worth has grown. By not making blind, uninformed purchases.
Some work out Better than others.
My target used to be <$.10 / mile for depreciation/interest costs and I managed that by buying and selling newer used vehicles frequently.
The equality of pricing across the board now thanks to the Internet has made that impossible to do without doing it the old fashioned way (by driving a vehicle til the wheels fall off).
Currently, our 2 primary personal vehicles are at about 5and 10 cents per mile straight depreciation not accounting for inflation.
While all the other costs can be figured in and controlled to an extent, all vehicles need fuel, maintenance, repairs, and insurance so I call those a wash.

But it's all in a persons priorities. Some buy a new car regularly without regard to what it's costing them (within reason). I try to squeeze every penny out of a vehicle, but I'm ok with a 450 hp commuter car that averages only 15mpg!

I like to have an idea of what costs are to help me decide when to buy my next truck. If I've owned a truck for 2 years and it works out that selling it now the depreciation is going to be $16k over 40k miles I might be motivated to keep it a little longer. If I have an opportunity to sell such that the depreciation is only 10k and the new model truck is significantly improved over my current truck I might be willing to sell it and buy a new one even though keeping the old one longer would likely be financially wiser.

It costs me more to own my 2013 Duramax-Denali then any vehicle I've had. But I mean: I spent more on it to start with, and I probably "over maintain it" and I let the dealer do all the work since they are reasonably priced and so I can keep a good record for warranty reasons. Having said all that, I'm happy spending the money on this rig and every time we go some where I just love the power, quietness and comfort. I'll spend the money happily.

The current IRS deduction is fifty three and half cents per mile. This seems reasonable to me overall.

It can be very difficult if not impossible to predict what your cost is going to be on a given vehicle, because you have no way of knowing for sure ahead of time what the reliability and therefore the repair costs are going to be for that one car or truck.

It's good to be flexible in life and know when it's time to cry uncle, and just move on to something else. Sometimes the expenses just are not worth it, other times, they are.

I like my trucks a lot, and really like being able to use my trailers for the things I enjoy in life ( traveling with the funfinder in tow, or using the horse trailer for taking horses to shows ) so the cost has to be looked at as simply part of the cost of my life activities.

The alternative is I suppose to sit at home and be bored.