> If you even take a few Uber trips a month, you're probably better off owning an affordable car.
My wife and I live in the city and downsized from two cars to zero after doing the math last year. Granted your definition of "a few" might be different from mine, but it takes way more than my definition of a few rides to break even.
If you ask someone to itemize the costs of car ownership, they tend to miss or underestimate a few. The big ones are insurance and depreciation. I am confident that my total rideshare costs over the past year are less than just the difference between my city insurance premium and my suburb premium on the same used car, and my record is spotless. The math is surprising. (Any cost of ownership estimate or calculator I share here can be reasonably challenged, so try it with your own numbers.)
This isn't to speak of the other costs and risks of non-ownership. Every situation is different. We are lucky to have subsidized public transportation passes, corporate discounts on rentals, walkable commutes, grocery stores in every direction, etc.
> If you ask someone to itemize the costs of car ownership, they tend to miss or underestimate a few. The big ones are insurance and depreciation. I am confident that my total rideshare costs over the past year are less than just the difference between my city insurance premium and my suburb premium on the same used car, and my record is spotless. The math is surprising.
I did this exact analysis on my car some years ago, after 5 years of ownership. I took into account all repairs/maintenance, purchase price, depreciation, insurance, gas, city fees and parking (yes, I keep track of all those expenses).
It came out to $288.77/month.
In reality, it was a bit less, given that 2 years later someone wrecked my car and their insurance paid more than it was worth (with no major repairs in those 2 years).
I then bought a much, much cheaper used car (about same value as my old one when it was wrecked), so the cost would be significantly less what I show above ($100 out of that $288.77 was just depreciation).
Depreciation seems to be the major cost, and my car was fairly used (8 years old when I bought it, but low on miles). Don't buy a used car for more than $10K - mine was less and you can still see the amount of depreciation! A lot of people think they're beating the game by buying a 2-3 year old used car, but the depreciation will still be really high. Of course, you can get good cars for under $4K, but it may be risky to go long distance in those.
Of course, the other trick is to get a reliable car. Pick only models with good histories (buy the Consumer Reports guide as one reference for this), and do a buyer's check before buying it. If you go to a used car lot and they don't let you do that check, then refuse to buy it.
The people for whom the advice of "buy a 2-4 year old certified pre-owned car" makes economic sense are the ones who are otherwise buying a new car. There are a ton of people who seem to default to "I'm buying new" for whatever reason.
I've had excellent savings (and frankly, minimal hassle) from buying an 8-year old Mercedes diesel with 180K on it, a 7-year old Honda CR-V with 165K on it, and a 7-year old Alfa Spider with 24k on it in my younger days. The Mercedes was bullet-proof but painted with an eco-friendly paint system that ensured they prematurely rusted (oh, the irony of taking a perfectly functional car off the road to save the pla). The Alfa I sold running well with 125K on it a few years back as we were planning to have kids. The Honda is still my SO's daily driver with around 215K on it.
I do my own wrenching on the cars, which also keeps the costs down, but even if I paid an independent (non-dealer) mechanic to do everything, decent cars just don't break that much any more. (The Alfa was extremely reliable. From 1993-2009, it broke exactly once and that was the failure of a Bosch distributor, nothing to do with the Italian heritage. The Mercedes took no major work over that time. The Honda did need a clutch which was $750 in parts and would have been around $1000 in labor.)
Not feeling the need to carry collision insurance is another big money saver.
> The people for whom the advice of "buy a 2-4 year old certified pre-owned car" makes economic sense are the ones who are otherwise buying a new car. There are a ton of people who seem to default to "I'm buying new" for whatever reason.
a lot of people just want the shiniest new thing they can get a loan for. I do think there are some legitimate reasons for buying new/CPO though. a lot of people (somewhat frivolously) plan to own a car for about five years, so buying new/CPO leaves the car in its original warranty for the majority of the time they own it. this probably isn't better economically, but knowing that a) cars are less likely to break during warranty, and b) the dealership will fix it for free if it does might be worth it for the peace of mind. there are some cars (mostly cheap performance cars) that I simply wouldn't consider buying used out of fear of what the previous owner may have done to it.
somewhat of a tangent, but I was looking at a couple online TCO calculators recently. not sure how they do their calculations (or how accurate they are), but I got some very surprising results. for all the models I was considering buying, the five year TCO was almost the same for CPO as it was for new, only lower by a few percentage points.
My wife and I live in the city and downsized from two cars to zero after doing the math last year. Granted your definition of "a few" might be different from mine, but it takes way more than my definition of a few rides to break even.
If you ask someone to itemize the costs of car ownership, they tend to miss or underestimate a few. The big ones are insurance and depreciation. I am confident that my total rideshare costs over the past year are less than just the difference between my city insurance premium and my suburb premium on the same used car, and my record is spotless. The math is surprising. (Any cost of ownership estimate or calculator I share here can be reasonably challenged, so try it with your own numbers.)
This isn't to speak of the other costs and risks of non-ownership. Every situation is different. We are lucky to have subsidized public transportation passes, corporate discounts on rentals, walkable commutes, grocery stores in every direction, etc.