travbjork

Hey everyone,

I currently only have my 2003 Vert M6 with 60k miles and was thinking about one of the following to keep the miles low:

• Getting a Second Car, likely a BMW or luxury sedan
• Trading in for a low miles, later model C6

In your opinion (or crazy math), how much does your C5 depreciate in USD for *every* mile you drive?

Can't wait to hear the answers
Travis

Bonus: What the fudge is up with my sun visors breaking? Have you had sun visor issues?

Trios

Travis, your C5 will not appreciate in any appreciable time period. Drive the car, it's meant to be driven.

travbjork

Haha, not so much worried about appreciation, just trying to keep a fine balance between miles, maintenance, and value.

This is just meant to be a fun exorcise in case someone has done the math before

Ericka

Buy the Vette you want and keep it.. or buy last years for 20 less.)

my vette is worth 20 i paid 9

problem is rich people buy vettes. sell them for pennies.

bad investment. you should love your car.

c51stvette

If you want low cost per mile I suggest you drive it like the cars mentioned in the thread "How many miles can you do on a C5" in the Tech section. Many cars with well over 150,000 miles.

travbjork

Well, full disclosure, I'm not worried about it dying. A friend of mine was complaining that I never pick him up and wanted to come in with a snarky, yet educated, cost per mile to go pick him up xP

Depreciation was the only factor I couldn't quantify. Obviously gas, average maintenance, insurance etc. are easy to divide.

Ericka

and they are well taken care of

K-Spaz

I think your car depreciates more for years than it does for miles, but that's jmho. I'd also say that it depends on two other major factors. What you paid for it (or overpaid for it) and how well you maintained it. Mine is WAY nicer now than it was when I bought it, but it has about 16K miles more than it did then. Do I need to include what I spent on the car for the depreciation? If so, I'd say it has lost anywhere from about $0.20 to $0.30/mile.

But those numbers are about to get a lot worse since I just bought a new engine, headers and will be getting a new transmission for it. And no, none of those parts need replaced.

travbjork

THANK you for the reply. How did you come up with that number? What does everyone else think?

Obviously, it's not a linear depreciation forever, but assuming I drive 30 miles a day, 5 days a week, I'm looking to drop about $2000 in value the first year at approximately 7800 miles total added.

momo20

while i can see the OP direction that he is going, i think that its pointless to consider these on today's sport's car's..reason why i say this is they made a lot of C5's, so drive and enjoy the car unless you est. everything in your life, which to me would add a lot of unwanted stress and there are far more things to worry about then how much my C5 corvette is depreciating per a mile or how much its cost's for me to look at in my garage

travbjork

Completely agree! I'd love to drive my C5 to the C5 Graveyard someday!

I just thought it would be a fun topic to talk about aside from the usual Column Lock and Transmission Clatter threads that pop up all the time

Kenny G

Cost per mile? Doesn't compare to the smiles per mile.

K-Spaz

I took what I figure it could sell for, subtracted what I paid for it, subtracted what I've paid in parts and labor put into it since, took the absolute value of that and divided it into the number of miles I've put on the car.

I think this is a great example of why it really pays to buy a nicer car up front. I have a lot of money in mine for fixing things to bring it back to like new condition which are not adding nearly enough value to it to justify their cost. True of any repair or mod, you simply take a hit on that. Collectively though, I'm pretty sure they've helped keep the depreciation to a minimum. Most of what I've done is to fix things, not mod things. And all in all, I'm quite happy with my car, considering what I've spent and what I've gotten from it in enjoyment.

And even if I buy another car, (already have 3), I do not foresee selling this one. By the time I would sell it, it probably won't bring enough to justify getting rid of it.

Choreo

Had my C5 as a DD for 15 years - 64,000 miles - cost per mile (including gas, insurance, maintenance, upkeep, etc.) - about $1.40/mile, but it looks and runs like new.

Even though it is my DD, I have spent more time maintaining it than driving it by far - gotta love "black"!

K-Spaz

Since the ops question was about depreciation cost, I didn't include operating costs, and deducted what I think it would sell for off the deal. He's looking for loss, not cost/mile to drive. Still, an interesting take on it by Choreo. I suppose if I thought about those numbers and didn't deduct the sell price estimate, I'd probably be near his number even though mine was 14 years old when I bought it.

I can't tell ya how many times I've kicked myself in the azz for not buying a 2013 when I had the chance. 72mo 0% and $42k out the door... What idiot is too cheap to just go do it???

73Corvette

If, I lose $1.00 @ mile... WTH! In two years I'll have to pay someone $10k to take the car...what was I thinking!!!

2FAS4UU

Put gas in it and drive it while thinking, " My car is worth a million bucks" !!

K-Spaz

I would be very surprised if your cost was less than that, and if you could show proof that that is true. I guarantee you mine is over $1/mile. Now, if you own the car a long time, you amortize the initial cost out farther, but add maintenance to the total and it's got to be at least a dollar.

That would be setting up for some bigtime disappointment at resale time.

Trios

That's cost per mile, though, not depreciation per mile. Cost per mile includes things like gas and repairs, depreciation is just the price you can sell it at.

Saying the depreciation goes down by a buck per mile would indicate that I would need to pay someone more than $50k to take my car.

Now, I would also have to disagree on that cost per mile, because my car has 130k miles, which I've put 70k of those on, and I have absolutely not spent a year's salary on the car in that time period. No way, no how.

K-Spaz

I agree about the discussion changing to cost vs depreciation, and I pointed that out above already. But, I went along with the new topic since nobody seems to want to take a stab at the Ops original question. No biggie.

Yes, if you put on tons of miles your cost per mile will go down, but your overall cost goes up. Your depreciation also goes up. At 70K, no, you probably don't have $1/mile in it, but probably are not all that far off. 70K, I'd say the car went through 3 sets of tires, 215 tanks of gas, maybe 14 oil changes, who knows how many years of insurance, you might be surprised at how close you'll come to that $1 figure. Surely there had to be maintenance money and some mad-money thrown at it as well?

I know this, it ain't hard for mine to go through $1000 bucks...