Cost of riding bike, compared to driving a motor vehicle.

Fuel, registration, maintenance and insurance for my car comes out to around $0.17 per mile. Giving away my Jeep was a good call.

 

Scion xB.



Of course, I'm not including the purchase price, because I paid cash when it was new, and so I've never had a car payment to make. Doing so would really skew the annual cost of ownership, since there's no reason to figure it into my budget. I did forget to include new tires at roughly 36k, which would add about one cent per mile over the life of the car so far.

For what it's worth, my Harley probably costs me $0.70 per mile. But that's because it sits during the winter.

 

So you took a random figure as your basis? That's rather pointless.

I drive roughly 9k per year in my car. Fuel economy varies between 25 and 33MPG, with 30 being easy to consistently maintain. Gasoline fluctuates between $2.60ish to almost $2.90, so I took $2.80 as my average cost per gallon. Throw in two oil changes at just under $30 each, registration is $160, and insurance is about $700 for the year.

 

Seeing as how the advertised MPG is 23/28, your figures seem a bit high. If it's 4WD, the real world economy is definitely lower than that. (Edmunds long term test managed a high of 25.9 mpg, a low of 12.7 mpg, and an average of 17.3 mpg)

And again, this "national average" is pointless. Toyota gave me three free oil changes with my Scion, and I used to get $14 oil changes (with a coupon) in SoCal. Here, I can pay $20 with a coupon, or $28 without. And I get them closer to 5k than 3k. Based on those figures, annual oil changes could vary from $28 and $84. Insurance in SoCal was $1,500.00, vs $800 where I live now. And that's gone down as well. Insurance and registration vary widely by driver and state. What I'm getting at is that if you want to calculate your savings from bike riding, at least start with a real world figure.

My bicycles do not replace my car for any significant trips. Owning them won't save me any money. And I'm certain that there's no savings in owning a Harley. It may get slightly better fuel economy than my car, but it also encourages me to take the long way home from work. And it requires the high octane fuel. Throw in one good weekend ride with my girl on the back, and it's easy for me to burn more fuel through the motorcycle in a week than I do in my car. But it's worth every cent. The same could be said of the money I spent on bicycles.

 

How do you like the Cube? That's one of the cars my fiance' is considering. By the way, that 9k is only because of trips to SoCal and a couple trips to Vegas. That accounts for around 2k. I try to commute by motorcycle as much as possible.

 

No, I didn't sell my Jeep, I gave it to my ex-wife. Seeing as how I got the house, car, motorcycle, really big TV, and two of the dogs, I had no problem letting her have that can of crap.

 

Nope. I told her I'd get everything, and she could get out. We're on much better terms now. That marriage put an $85k hole in my savings.

 

I had put a 3" lift and 31" tires on it, so it had the death wobble. I kinda feel bad, but she wanted the damn thing in the first place. I couldn't stomach the cost of building another Landcruiser, but it still seems cheaper to spend 2-3x as much for a more reliable vehicle.