Cost of ownership for my e34

[Scott E]

I modified and updated the spreadsheet I use to track expenses for my car. I also added some formulas to calcuate how much it really cost me to drive and maintain my car based on data in the spreadsheet and some information I found on the net about Southern California fuel prices over the past 4 years.

In a nutshell it costs me about 54 cents a mile to maintain my car. Hopefully I dont have any major repairs for a while and that number goes down a little.

Let me know what you think and feel free to use it as a template :)

http://www.kidkrash.com/expense.xls

http://www.kidkrash.com/gallery/albums/album10/DSCFE466.jpg

[dave b]

Withouth gas, I'm at $.36 per mile over the last 70,000 miles on my 1993 525i.

Also in Socal.

[billb]

Let me know what you think and feel free to use it as a template :)

http://www.kidkrash.com/expense.xls


I should get royalties for that thing! :p

Bill B.

[ryan roopnarine]

reading your spreadsheet, i'm beginning to think that i'm expecting too much in the "repair-free" department for this age of a car. in the last 9 months, I've put just under 21,000 miles on the car, and i don't even drive it during most of the week. i guess i can expect for stuff to fall off under stress, and EVENTUALLY (hopefully) taper off. being able to put off a heater core replacement until sept. helps too, i guess. i'm curious, too, how you managed to only spend 10 for an oil change...isn't the filter like $5 by itself? most good quality SJ oil is at least 1.25-150, and if i'm not mistaken, your m30 uses roughly the same 6-7 quarts my m50 does.

[ryan roopnarine]

pps....how do you do a tranny and oil for $20? i don't have a manual, but even when the motor oil was almost free, i still paid almost $15 to change oil and tranny fluid at the same time, not including a filter (or the carb spray to clean stuff up). i'll be conservative and say.....Rebate on maxlife 10w40--free

filter--about $6 after i drove across town for it
two quarts of maxlife (as the rebate is only for 5 qts)--$4.22 plus tax
1 gallon wal mart transmission fluid $4.5x
can of carb spray for this and sundry other tasks--.75

=16-17 dollars...

i'm a cheap son of a b'....share your secret.

[Scott E]

The oil filter was $4 from BMA and I try to find Valvoline 20/50w on sale for a $1 a quart after rebates and such. The tranny filter was $10 from BMA and I was given a case of tranny fluid awhile back.

[Scott E]

If I were to purchase a brand new $30,000 vehicle (financing included) that gets 25 mpg and I drive 15,000 miles a year for 5 years, assume fuel to be $2.00 per gallon, and $1000 a year for insurance my Cost Per Mile would be about 54 cents a mile over a 5 year period.

This is assuming no repair & maintenance costs. I.E. Tires, Oil, Brakes...etc etc

And GUESS WHAT??? It still wouldnt have the e34 styling :)

Just my 25 cents worth to my own thead

[Elekta]

Look for my 04 taxes to reflect the $.54 p/m number next year. I claim the max on my work car and drive it about 16k p/yr.

[MicahO]

Numbers CAN lie, that's what it comes down to. What I mean is that numbers can be twisted quite easily to show exactly what the user wants to support.

Looking back on the ownership of both of my e34's, and I kept very meticulous records, I came to some conclusions. 1) the e34 is a great used, long-term ownership vehicle, and 2) the 535 I bought was horribly tainted, and I never figured out how or why.

The wife's Touring - owned it for 3 years and 34K miles. "Cost" of the car, including maintenance, repairs and upgrades worked out to an incredibly reasonable 18 cents per mile, and 5 cents of that was "upgrades" (in my book, wheels are upgrades, tires are maintenance, so there's even statistical rationalization in that number). Now take that number and add it up - the cost of ownership, plus the cost of purchase, minus the return from selling (I adjust my sell price for this number, as I gave my nephew a completely unreasonable sweetheart deal on the car) and I come up with about $300 per month of total expense, where "expense = cost + depreciation" $300 a month when one includes depreciation is quite good. As an addendum, I'll note that the tranny dies on my nephew 6 months after I sold the car - that would have changed the "cost" picture considerably. Sale was forced by the fact that the wife needed more space. I considered selling the 535 at this time, but my nephew asked about buying the Wagon, and at the time I was "happy" to keep the 535.

My 535 - owned it for 2 years and 20K miles. "Cost" of the car including maintenance, repairs and upgrades worked out to 52 cents per mile, 10 cents of which I classified as upgrades. And I was still chasing demons. Ownership alone, disregarding depreciation, was an astounding $450 per month!!! If you take out the $2K I spent on driveshafts that didn't fix the vibration the car had, I'm still looking at $365 per month and 42 cents per mile before depreciation. You don't want to see the number after depreciation, but feel free to poke around on Edmunds and sort it out. That car hit me right in the pooper.

Had I sold the 535 and kept the Touring, I would still be driving an e34 today. But I didn't, I kept the possesed monster for a few more months, then sold it to my mechanic at a little over what Edmunds called "private party" and I was happy when it was gone (insert Tom Petty song here).

It was easy to rationalize the cost on my 330, coming from what I had spent on the 535. It's also easy to emotionally attach to the 330 - the car simply rips. But I do know what Scott's saying about the e34 - there is a LOT about the car that people will not find elsewhere, and, admittedly, new bimmers ain't cheap.

I tend to think that anyone spending over 30 or 40 cents per mile simply keeping their car on the road is spending too much, but that is a straight cost comparison and does not cover the emotional issues that do arise with these vehicles. Frankly, the 535 I owned beat me up so much I got tired of, as Ryan said so well, waiting for the repairs to "taper off." I tapered them off myself, and said buh-bye!

If you've got the right e34, it's a great car to own for the long term. If you've got the wrong one, you're in for a world of hurt - cut your losses and move on, even if it's a move to another e34.

As with all things, YMMV. :)

[Jason]

yes, the E34 is a great looking car but something newer, and also good looking, say an E46, won't need work every 2 months (hopefully)

[Elekta]

I'm keeping this (paid $13.5k 2 years ago and have $8k more in it, but nothing over $300 in the last year - not incl $1k stereo upgrade)
http://volcano.photobucket.com/albums/v11/ggil-tx/bmw/DSCN0958.jpg

until this comes out
http://zoouz.free.fr/other/e61/TMP_fichiers/e61_021.jpg

and even then, I might warehouse it still for my 2 year old

[ryan roopnarine]

it would be nice if all of my failures didn't seem to be hoses falling off, or screwdrivers in the transmission, or other crap that i might be able to figure out. first failure was headgasket, once back on the road, repair every 2 months, now its been almost 4 months and 8,000 miles since my last necessary repair (alt brushes) before this last failure (heat core).... so i think things are actually tapering off. Most of the "repairs" that my car needs now are things that don't require parts per se, so I plan on entertaining myself in that manner.....annoying little crap, like the head liner (its florida, was expecting it), the seat cables, preventatively changing out all of the american diameter hoses under the hood, shimming the starter so it doesn't chirp anymore, replacing the differential fluid with the oil i've had sitting aorund for 18 months now.....it might have been in unseen (rough condition) when i bought it, buuuutttt, it looks like its just minor annoyances from now on (crossing fingers)



Numbers CAN lie, that's what it comes down to. What I mean is that numbers can be twisted quite easily to show exactly what the user wants to support.

Looking back on the .......Frankly, the 535 I owned beat me up so much I got tired of, as Ryan said so well, waiting for the repairs to "taper off." I tapered them off myself, and said buh-bye!


As with all things, YMMV. :)

[Dan in NZ]

I thought my car was costing me a FORTUNE, but I just updated my spreadsheet, and over the 1yr and 15,000km I've had the car, I've spent about $2,300. Only NZD$0.16 per km, and about the same in Petrol. I use cons2 as a lifetime average of fuel consumption, and that's sitting at 13.2L/100km, with petrol $1.21 per Liter.

I suppose when you're a student, $2300 a year is a HUGE expense, but over 15,000Km it's not so bad.

[JR'Z 525]

Even though I keep receipts, log all maintenance etc, I'd be afraid to find out what my E34 has cost me total for the 3 + years of ownership. It ain't no Toyota but it's a heck of alot more fun when I take the back road home!
JR

[Kamil]

why was the head gasket replaced twice? (previous owner and u)

[billb]

6.4 cents/mile fuel
10.7 cents/mile maintenance (everything, including tires, PM, inspections, fluids, services, the whole shebang
8.1 cents/mile insurance
15.2 cents/mile depreciation (bought for 20k in 1999, might be worth 10k now, 61k miles in that time)

At 10k miles/year, that's $4040 in annual vehicle cost. Divided by 12, that's $336/month. Almost the cost of a car payment, which doesn't include insurance, depreciation, fuel, maintenance, etc.

Guess we'll have to cross that bridge when the tranny goes south (or put in a 5-speed...)

Gonna go get some BG44K tomorrow and pamper Ginger over the weekend.

Good lil E34...good girl.

Bill B.

[winfred]

man some of you have gotten the short end of the stick, i don't spend dick on my two besides gas upgrades and oil changes, i pretty much don't touch anything between oil changes except to check the air in the tires

[Matt P]

I have you all beat... :-)

Take a guess at how much my M5 Touring has cost me per mile. Hint: I've put 20,000 km on it in 2 years.

(actually, I'm taking this time to go and add up what I've spent on it)

[JoeS]

Yeah, I have probably spent way too much on my e34 in comparison to having a newer car with less maintenance. I shutter to think of my cost per mile or my yearly maintence fees. So, I stopped counting. I categorize my e34 mods and upkeep expenses as entertainent. Cause i know it is cheaper than drinkin' , chasin' trouser trout, concert tickets, and weekend getaways ( with the netted trout).

[Scott E]

I would guess about $3.50 per km :)

[Matt P]

Close... I get $4.95/mile or $3.02/km

How the heck can an E34 cost $60K and only be driven 12,200 miles....

I'll post my breakdown if anyone is interested...

[Dan in NZ]

How the heck can an E34 cost $60K and only be driven 12,200 miles....

I'll post my breakdown if anyone is interested...


I've heard the EPROM can be reprogrammed with a new mileage quite easily...

[Matt P]

The question was more along the lines of how can I drive it so infrequently, yet spend so much money on it. :-)

Actually though, the M5 Touring has had some rather abnormal costs assosiated with it due to importing it from Germany to the USA ($14-$15K) in addition to a relativly high purchase price (for an E34, $28K) which makes it not really comparable to most other people here's cost of ownership and operation.

[ryan roopnarine]

might wanna consider putting it in ONLY when you're willing and able to change oil afterward...its not at all like techron or redline....will eat your oil up. my oil consumption went from 1/4 quart per 6000 to 1 quart per 1000 while it was still in suspension, its hard on yer oil, but it looks like it cleaned all the crud out, as i can get SOLID 31 at 65-70 now.


Gonna go get some BG44K tomorrow and pamper Ginger over the weekend.

Good lil E34...good girl.

Bill B.

[MicahO]

Since you are counting gas in there, that's a pretty impressive number!

[MicahO]

No fair! Non-daily drivers are allowed to have exorbitant costs!

;)

I can't imagine what's been spent on my '59 Galaxie, and I don't really ENJOY that car...... But wifey won't let me sell it. :(

[Unregistered]

I wonder if we're only seeing responses from drivers with truly high cost/mile figures. My 91 535i 5speed now has 140k and I put the last 100k of those miles on it. Only out of ordinary maintenance expense in seven years was the headgasket replacement last year, $600 and my labor. This board helps me keep the car out of the dealership with great advice. I add one can of R-12 about every two years to the A/C. My car could fall apart tomorrow and I'd rebuild it. As someone pointed out earlier, cost nomenclature and allocation have a lot to do with the cost/mile figure. I could see pencil whipping the numbers to get a driving cost per mile and an ownership cost per mile, two different figures IMHO.

Paul

[dave b]

I only had the clutch as my out of normal repairs in about 70k. The regular maintenance, gas, insurance, etc adds up over the years.

I'd say anything around what the IRS gives you for mileage is about normal.

[Bill R.]

1,000 on it excluding gas and oil...That includes radiator, water pump , thermostat, hoses, belts, tuneups , dash cluster repair, seats repaired, driveshaft rebuilt, brakes,motor mounts, exhaust hangers, o2 sensor, trans filters and fluid, valve cover gaskets,a window motor, In my case I can't justify getting rid of it... Gas isn't anywhere near high enough yet for me to come out ahead buying a new gas saver...

[warton]

.

[winfred]

;)