Saturday, August 31, 2013

What your car costs you, state by state


Bankrate.com has produced a very handy table illustrating the cost of ownership of a typical car in each of the 50 US states.  I understand that the same vehicle, covering the same mileage, is used as the basis for the table, so as to compare apples to apples (or should that be Acuras to Zundapps?).

The gap between the most expensive state (Georgia, at $4,223 per annum) and the cheapest (Oregon - $2,204) is much bigger than I expected, with the former no less than 91.6% more expensive than the latter.  The average across all 50 states is $3,201 - 45.2% more expensive than the cheapest state, but 24.2% cheaper than the most expensive state.

Go read the whole table for yourself.  It's very informative.  There are a couple of more detailed reports at the foot, if you're interested.

Peter

9 comments:

Old NFO said...

I'm surprised VA is not higher... It's EXPENSIVE up here!!!

joe said...

I'm not surprised to see the insurance costs for Louisiana. I lived there for a year. One large, national, company wouldn't sell insurance at all. As for VA, the high costs for my part seem mostly to be taxes. Whenever I hear about "national average" fuel costs, it's significantly cheaper here (SW part of the state).

Robo-block: ocilett. When you allow a small wild cat into your house? Or, for folks across the pond, a small wild cat for rent?

Expatriate Owl said...

The New York number is deceptive because it is obviously an average for the entire state. The State of New York is, in many respects, three separate "states"; to wit, New York City, Long Island and Upstate (the NYC suburban counties of Westchester and Rockland arguably constitute a "state" unto themselves).

The automobile insurance rates and repair costs in New York City are significantly higher than the other areas of the state, and Long Island is somewhat lower but significantly higher than Upstate.

As one who, for reasons too complex to detail here, lives on Long Island, my bottom line costs of car ownership are higher than the New York State average listed in the table (but less than New York City's).

[Oh, by the way, the table apparently does not include the cost of parking the car in New York City, be it garaging fees or be it moving the car to comply with the alternate side of street parking rules. Such expenditures are the norm for those in New York City who do not have their own driveways or garages in their homes.]

diesel smoke said...

there are some states missing. They only showed 50 states. Obumer said we have 58. Where did the other states go?

Anonymous said...

As a current resident of New York and former resident of Connecticut, I see a glaring error on this table which calls the entire thing into question. It shows taxes as being about the same in the two states. Untrue! Connecticut has a high and burdensome personal property tax on motor vehicles. It can be hundreds of dollars a year even on a modest car, for example a 3-year-old Accord or Camry. New York has no such tax.

Peter

Differ said...

I'm a little surprised to see Georgia at 13th on gas prices when the average price in Atlanta (which is higher than a lot of the rest of the state) is consistently about the national average according to NPR, while California which has some of the most burdensome taxes on gas comes in below the national average on this survey.
I just checked gas buddy and Ga is at the average, while Ca is +20Cents...

Well Seasoned Fool said...

Wyoming's position is a puzzle unless the number of miles driven per year is higher than average. Gas prices in much of Wyoming is lower than surrounding areas.

The Raving Prophet said...

I'm not sure why Missouri is so high and Illinois so low... they show Illinois' fuel costs as much less, but IL has far higher gas tax than MO and the equivalent fuel in MO is always less expensive.

I'm thinking the spot price check they did was not necessarily as accurate as they suppose.

Anonymous said...

Seeing where they placed Wyoming I call bunk on their study.