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Comment by Infernal | Hacker News Reader

To help quantify this a bit - in 2008 I bought a brand new Honda Fit (cash) for about $17k. Has 120k miles on it now, very low maintenance, few repairs, definitely a budget/economy car. Over 10 years, another $600ish a year in gas (lifetime average of 35mpg), 4 sets of ~$400 apiece tires, ~$80 in oil changes a year, another ~$700/yr in insurance, looks like a TCO of $32k (and I'm sure I'm leaving stuff out). $266/mo is quite a bit more than what this person has spent on Uber.

The big difference is this person is only using ~114 rides/year, whereas just commuting to work I use my car for ~400 rides/year. Add in one out and back weekend trip (ignoring shopping trips through the week etc.) and we're up to 500 rides/year. If my average ride cost were the same as this person ($17.50/ride) I'd be looking at over $700/mo.

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I have a Honda Fit and it's a beautiful car. I am in love with it, and I don't think I will ever buy another type of car again. The maintenance costs are ultra low, much lower than my Honda Accord.

But there is no way it gets 35 mpg. I have been keeping track meticulously and the maximum I get is about 30 mpg, and it drops to 27 if I do any city driving. If I do only highway driving, I can get up to 320 miles in a single tank, but I'm driving on fumes at the end. I normally get about 280 miles per tank, which is about 27 mpg at 10.6 gallons.

Also, with my 2011 Honda Fit, I'm at 120k miles. I've had 2 sets of new tires, but no other maintenance besides regularly scheduled maintenance.

So I have also meticulously kept track of my mileage, from January 2013 to November 2017 (my wife began driving it in November, and I didn't have an iPhone app to track it prior to 2013). The current average over that time frame is 36.8MPG. Worst tanks I have are when I was only on the interstate, would get 34MPG.

Mine is an '08 - they seem to have gotten heavier in later years. It also has a manual transmission, which offers more flexibility for conserving brakes and fuel. My wife gets more in the 32-34mpg range, but doesn't keep close tabs on it - she also now has a couple car seats and toddlers in the car, so weight penalty.

EDIT: There might genuinely be an issue with your car - I have a 10.8 gal tank as well but routinely get over 400 miles per tank - 370 if I've been driving more aggressively.

Fitniks unite!

MPG on the Fit depends on how you drive it. It hits max MPG at about 55MPH, if I recall correctly.

Now in TX you have highways with 85mph speed limit (most are 75), and in CA people drive as if the speed limit was 85 anyway - which is how I end up with the same mileage as what you report.

You're right that it's way cheaper, but you did forget to account for the opportunity cost of the $17K up front (about $1700 in interest in a simple savings account, but depending on how you invested it, you may have done better).

The fit is probably worth more than 1700$ right now. You could also have invested the savings to make even more money.

Still, the goal is a ballpark not an exact number and that's plenty to say Uber would have been a poor fit.

> The fit is probably worth more than 1700$ right now.

Yes but the $17K plus the interest would be $18.7K. :)

And like I said, it's still a much better deal than Uber, but the opportunity cost of the up front money is often missed in these types of calculations, and can be significant.

I think you're both making good points here but just to clarify:

I did not account for the interest that could've been earned on that $17k (which could conservatively be $1700, aggressively could've been another $17k).

I also did not account for the residual value of a 10 year old 120k mile Honda Fit, which is probably in the $5k range.

17k - 700$ a month stops being 17k very quickly.

You need to look at pricinciple - expenses + interest for each month on both sides. Consider if he had a pile of money to cover 700$ a month in Uber driving and what would happen on each path.

You paid $400/tire? isn't that kind of expensive for a honda fit?

Pretty sure that's 400/set and you need to buy a new set every few years.

Ah, good point. I was referring to about $400 per set of tires including installation. My original post was unclear in that regard.

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