What It Really Costs to Own a Car
MSRP is just the starting point. The true cost of owning a car is the out-the-door price you sign for, plus everything you pay over the years you keep it — trade-in credit, warranty coverage, maintenance and repairs, insurance, and depreciation. This hub breaks each one down, with a calculator to estimate your real number and a dedicated page for every cost below.
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Where These Numbers Come From
Every monthly estimate on Carummah is written as financing through the brand's own financial company, Honda Financial Services for a Honda: the total price over 60 months, $0 down, at an assumed 7% markup. The 7% is our assumption so the number means something, not a rate anyone is quoted. Yours will move with your credit, your term, and whatever rate the brand is running.
That markup is not the Loan Excess. The brand's financing arm owns the car it sells, so the charge is profit on a cost-plus sale and the total is fixed at signing. The identical figure borrowed from a third-party bank would be the Loan Excess, because the bank never owns the car. What decides it is who finances the vehicle, not how large the number is. Murabaha and lease-to-own options.
Out-the-door figures use state tax, doc fee and registration averages. Maintenance, insurance and resale draw on RepairPal, KBB and Edmunds data. Each page below shows the working.
Go deeper
One cost at a time
Out-the-Door Price
What turns MSRP into the number on the contract: destination, tax, doc fee, registration, and every add-on in between.
Trade-In Value
Estimate what your current car is worth and how much it takes off what you pay out of pocket.
Warranty Coverage
What powertrain, comprehensive and extended coverage each pay for, and when every one of them runs out.
Maintenance & Repairs
Yearly upkeep by model, plus the service milestones through 120,000 miles that catch owners out.
Insurance Costs
What coverage runs by body type, and the factors that move a premium the most.
Depreciation & Resale
The biggest cost of owning a car. Project what a vehicle is worth in one, three and five years.