When it comes to buying a new car, agreeing on a price you’re happy with is really only the first step. Even after you learn what your monthly payment will be, you’ll have more expenses to consider, like insurance, gasoline, and maintenance. Odds are, you could run the numbers yourself and come up with a pretty good estimate of what it will really cost to own that new car you’ve had your eye on. Or, you could just let this YouTube channel we found do most of the work for you.
Maie Haven’s channel is still pretty small, but it’s essentially entirely dedicated to calculating an estimated cost to own for any given vehicle. For example, let’s take the Chevrolet Tahoe Z71. The basic 5.3-liter V8 version has an MSRP of $68,295. Add in the $1,995 destination charge and about $5,600 in sales tax, and you’re probably looking at a total of about $76,000 just to get the keys to a Tahoe Z71.
A 10 percent downpayment would be about $7,600, and if you figure you’ll pay about 8.0 percent interest over 72 months, you’re looking at a monthly payment of $1,200 or so. Over six years, that interest will add up to about $18,000. Then, if you add in about $175 a month for insurance, between $250 and $275 a month for gas and a $75-ish monthly maintenance budget to make sure you’re prepared for when something breaks, that brings your monthly cost to own up to a little more than $1,700.
If you figure that 15 percent of your yearly income is a responsible amount to spend on transportation every month, that would mean you’d need to make more than $137,000 annually to afford that Z71 you’ve been looking at. Over the course of the 72 month loan, though, you’d end up paying more than $131,000 for the privilege of driving that $68,000 Tahoe.
Of course, everyone’s individual situation is different. Maybe you know you can get a slightly better interest rate and could afford the payments on a three-year loan. Maybe your mechanic buddy owes you for saving his life and has promised to work on your cars for free. Heck, maybe you’re the world’s best negotiator and know you won’t be paying MSRP. If that’s the case, good for you.
Not every estimate is ever going to be perfect, but this channel appears to be a great way to spend a couple of minutes getting a rough picture of what that new car would really cost to own. If $131,000 to drive a Tahoe Z71 for six years feels reasonable to you, go for it. If that sounds a little too rich for your blood, at least you’ll figure that out now instead of six years from now, after you’ve already paid it off.