Cars confuse me
April 12, 2010 7:38 AM   Subscribe

Should I get my 1998 Toyota truck up and running or buy a used car?

My husband has been riding a motorcycle but this is not going to work for his 30 mile one way commute to school. We have a truck that we have not used since gas was $4 a gallon because the gas bills were prohibitive.

We are living on my salary with not much to spare but he has to have transportation. Would it be better to get a beater car that has better gas milage or get him back in the truck?
posted by shaarog to Travel & Transportation (8 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
This should be easy to figure out based on simple math, but you cannot always account for things like cars breaking down, etc., so YMMV.

Distance to and from school: 60 miles. MPG of the truck: XX. Cost of a gallon of gas: YY. Figure out how much money you'd be spending on gas on a monthly basis, and multiply that by the number of months he's going to be in school using the truck.

Now take the potential cost of buying another car with better gas mileage. Figure the same monthly gas costs on the potential new vehicle and add it to the upfront cost of buying it. Which is more expensive? Also factor in how reliable the truck is in comparison to the potential beater.
posted by nitsuj at 7:52 AM on April 12, 2010


A 1998 Toyota truck, assuming it is in reasonable shape, is probably worth a bit of cash. They hold their value very well. If you don't need a truck, sell it, buy a cheap used car, and hopefully have a bit left over for the gas fund. A fuel efficient car will use a lot less fuel than your truck, so you'll save a lot in the long term.
posted by ssg at 8:13 AM on April 12, 2010


Yea, a '98 Toyota has another 20 years on it if my old one was any indication.

I was a teenager driving an '88 (I think) Toyota pickup... The clutch finally gave up around 2003 after who knows how much driving over shopping carts and curbs and after who knows how little oil. Not maintaining it at all it lasted longer than it should have.
posted by cmoj at 8:20 AM on April 12, 2010


Too much information is missing regarding getting the Toyota truck back up and running. How long has it been sitting? What does it need? Are there major mechanical problems? But you still can do a basic estimate to find your break even point on the improved efficiency versus the cost to purchase new vehicle. The formula is as follows:

N (number of miles to break even) = C (cost of new vehicle) / d (difference in cost per mile to drive new vehicle vs. truck).

Here's an example, assuming a $4000 new car and $1000 back on selling the Toyota:

gas = $3/gallon
Toyota truck = 15 mpg, cost per mile = $3/15 mpg = $0.20/mile
new car = 30 mpg, cost per mile = $3/30 mpg = $0.10/mile

d (difference) = $0.20/mile - $0.10/mile = $0.10/mile

C (cost of new car - sale of Toyota) = $3000

N (number of miles to break even) = C/d = $3000/($0.10/mile) = 30,000 miles.

If he drives 60 miles per day, five days a week, 50 weeks per year, that's 15,000 miles/year, so it would take two years to break even on the cost of the new vehicle compared to continuing to drive the truck. That doesn't take into account maintenance nor cost to get Toyota operational, if any. A newer vehicle may or may not have a lower yearly maintenance cost than the truck. You should be able to look information up on whatever you're planning on getting.

But N = C/d should still get you in the ballpark. Play around with different values to see what makes sense, and with best and worst case scenarios. A 25 mpg new vehicle for $5000 with no money back from a 15 mpg Toyota and gas staying around $3/gal is going to take a lot longer to hit the break even than a $3000 40 mpg car and a 10 mpg Toyota that you sold for $1000 with $4 gas (N = 63,000 miles for the first case and 6700 miles in the second case).
posted by 6550 at 8:35 AM on April 12, 2010


If you're just basing this on gas mileage, you'll end up using the truck, assuking you were planning to keep the truck and not sell it. But it might be time for you to sit down and figure out what you want in a vehicle and what you can afford.

I don't have your numbers aside from commute distance, so I'll make some up. Let's say he goes to school four days per week. That's 240 miles per week. Now let's suppose the truck can get 20 mpg during this time, and that you can get a car that gets 35 mpg. Let's go with $3 per gallon, since we're already heading there again for summer. Under these numbers, the truck would use 12 gallons a week while the car would use a little less than 7. That's $36 vs. $20. A nice difference, but it would take 100 weeks to make the difference up if you spent $1600 on a car.

Now if you can sell the truck, things change. Let's suppose you can get $5000 out of the truck (again, making numbers up.) That's going to be more than enough to get a used, say, Hyundai Accent, like an 04-05. This will get much better gas mileage.

You also might want to figure in other costs. Tires for a truck are likely going to cost a chunk of money; on my Nissan truck a cheap set would have run me nearly $800. On a car like an Accent you can get a pretty good set for $300 or so. Smaller vehicles tend to be cheaper to maintain that larger ones in my experience, since larger ones tend to have more bell and whistles (aka things that can break.)

Lastly, consider the future. Gas isn't $4 a gallon any more, but there's no reason why it can't get back up there again. As I mentioned, it's already climbing towards $3 and possibly beyond with summer vacation season coming up. Another gulf hurricane or other significant event could easily spike the price again, and a major foreign incident in the right spot could spike it even higher. You might want to get a vehicle that will insulate you some against these spikes, since you've already found how painful a truck can be with those prices.

(FWIW, I did the same thing when gas prices spiked. I parked my truck and just rode my motorcycle everywhere. If I didn't have the motorcycle option, I'd have been screwed because there was no way I could have afforded the gas, especially since we'd both been forced to take painful pay cuts back then.)

Good luck!
posted by azpenguin at 8:43 AM on April 12, 2010


Response by poster: Thank you hivemind!! These are excellent answers. Don't know why I could not come up with the math myself but you are all correct.

He will be in school until Sept. and then will be a working stiff so it looks like the truck is our best bet. Do not really want to sell it at this time either.

Thanks again for taking the time to solve my problem.
posted by shaarog at 9:23 AM on April 12, 2010


Another Idea is too buy really good motorcycle gear such as an
Aerostich suit
These things are great, waterproof, keep the wind off and are pretty good protection in a crash. With this, a heated vest, gloves and boots pretty much any weather is manageable. However if you are dealing iwth snow or ice, motorcycle is definately not the way to go.

No truck is going to get as good of mileage as a motorcycle, and motorcycle are cheaper to maintain (assuming you can do it yourself).
posted by bartonlong at 4:45 PM on April 12, 2010


I don't understand why he can't ride a motorcycle for 60 miles a day...?
posted by speedgraphic at 11:24 AM on May 28, 2010


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