Posts

Showing posts from June, 2015

Why my car cost more than taking Uber everywhere

Image
This afternoon, I sold my car.  It was a great car - a 2002 Subaru WRX with 36,700 miles.  It did 0-60 in 5.9 seconds (and I'd tested it out enough times to appreciate that).  Super fun.  Carried groceries and anything I needed.  Good for city.  Good for climbing and camping trips.  Worked well.  Nothing wrong with it. Good riddance. I'm an abnormal car owner, for sure, but one of the points I raise below (better uses of the capital expense of the car) applies pretty broadly.  Over the life of the car, I paid more than $4 per mile traveled.   Even if all  of my travel was one-mile trips, Uber ($2 base fee + $1.25 per mile in Pittsburgh) would have been far cheaper.  You can substitute Lyft or Yellow Cab for Uber in that equation, of course, assuming you could actually get a cab in Pittsburgh to pick you up when you needed. I paid about $18,400 for it in 2005.  I drove about 9200 miles.  It takes premium gas.  I created a little spreadsheet to let others do the sa