What would be average family spend on a comfortable and safe used car per year? Taking into account petrol, insurance, parking and maintenance? I am comparing the costs of owning a car verses our current public transport/ mobility usage.

What's average?
Hubbie commutes all week by train.
Misses commutes to local food pantry 2X a week. Shuttles kids around.
Family outing on Sunday.
Big shopping excursions on Saturday.
Have used Skoda Oktavia so here's your link: https://www.adac.de/infotestrat/auto...SG+(ab+12%2f20)


For other models: https://www.adac.de/infotestrat/auto...r/default.aspx

I do not know any family that would say they are " average " .

We have 3 cars
- family car
- work car
- fun car

they all cost - however not even close how much kids cost - so car is less relevant in family budget than amount of kids you have - taking into account it's not easy to sell either

Just for these, we pay around chf 3k a year.

You could also include the cost of purchase / lease / depreciation.

And tax, vignette, tyres and an occasional car wash, or oil top up.

Other sundries like a baby seat, gps etc.

Škoda

We just started down this path after 10+ years of no car...



Insurance: 500/year (very variable, shop around)
registration: ???

Fuel: I'm budgeting a tank a month - around 60-80chf
Maintenance: how long is a piece of string ?

MFK: every couple of years. costs ? 100-200 ?
Car cost: totally depends on what you buy, but second hand car market seems to have plenty...



Parking - anything from 60-200chf/month (indoors or outdoors).

City parking - shopping centres etc 1-5chf/visit.



Right now, our family are spending very little on travel and holidays. The car is a change of lifestyle for us that focuses on having more local spontaneous mobility, and potentially driving somewhere over the border in summer...

Very roughly, 1K tax, 1K insurance, 1K garage costs. Then add in depreciation and fuel.

It's probably cheaper to rent when you need one.

I know OP asked for an average family and probably did not mean single income/single parent family - but renting + public transport is definitely cheaper here for us. And one gets a break on the trains, less fatigue, more family fun.

Average or median ?

I definitely agree with this. Thanks to some of the answers above, I've calculated owning a car would double our current transport costs. Therefore the benefits (convenience ) of it would need to be greater than the cost, and I don't think it will improve our lives that much at this point. Thanks for all the helpful answers!

I am looking forward to self driving cars - would hope there be "Uber" offer where I just punch in the address and never ever own a car again - but if feels nice from time to time to go over the limit ...and that wont't work with "Google recommends not to exceed speed limit or will inform local authorities " - that's the part I am not looking forward to

Also have a look at Mobility and other car-sharing schemes.

First thing is to work out your requirements - what do you actually need the car for?

Public transport plus Mobility is probably cheaper, particularly if you adapt your usage to suit it, but not as convenient, so it could come down to how much that convenience is worth to you.

1K in Tax? Do you have a 5 Liter engine?

I had no car for a long time, then bought one a couple of years ago. I haven't used it much in the last year due to the pandemic, but if you generally do a lot of Winter sports, as well as road trips to neighbouring countries in Spring/Summer, then imo a car quickly becomes indispensible in terms of convenience. Plus, if you have a few people in your car all contributing to petrol then trips become very cheap vs train.

So yeah, I don't need a car, but I love having one, and will be using it on a regular basis again when vaccinated and I can move more freely.

Do you and your husband share one EF account?

or a 4 tonnes truck?

and 500 CHF in insurance will only buy you a Haftpflicht.

So for a regular family kombi I'd budget 1k(1.5k for a full cover) in insurance and 0.5k in tax.

I pay CHF 1,063 for 2x 4 litres on swappable plates.

Why would you want anything more?

Tom

I was using physicist's estimation. Always to the nearest power of ten. I did say "very roughly".

insurance?
tax?
or both?