Should I sell my van?

[AmyFurl]

I bought my van a year ago when my work was a lot closer to home. About a month ago I got a great opportunity and accepted this new job - though it is now 50 miles one way so 100 miles round trip. Needless to say, my van gets on aveage 23mpg (I do a lot of highway travel). My husband drives a cobalt and gets in the mid 30's mpg - I would save a boatload of money each year if I were to drive a car with better gas mileage. I owe 7700 on my van loan and know if I sold privately I could get very close to that. The dealer (where I am approved to get a car) could take it on trade in but only able to offer about 5500-6000. I'm not having trouble making the payments or the gas, but have done some fuel savings calculators and there is a BIG savings opportunity there - I could definitely put that savings to better use! What are your thoughts?

[amarowsky]

I worked out your weekly gas prices assuming your 100 mile trip is done 5 days a week. If so assuming an average gas price of 2.6 per gallon you price per week in the van is $56.42 and for the cobalt would be $43.33 weekly. A difference of $13.09 weekly, and $680.68 yearly (off 52 work weeks, only considering your drive to work).

Roughly $700 is a lot of money every year, on a decent car thats about two months of payments. But you also have to consider the convenience of a van, it's a lot more comfortable and if you have a family it fits a LOT more people than a basically 3.5 person cobalt fits.

So it all depends on the luxury and comfort you want when driving, personally it sounds like a better idea to switch vehicles w/ your husband, unless he has farther to drive. And consider your putting a LOT of miles on your van.

If you do have a family that often needs the van, then maybe it would be worth it to buy a much cheaper but safe efficient used car for around $4-5000.00. This would save you the 700 a year, which would pay for itself in a few years in addition to keeping the value of the Van higher because of the lack of mileage/use.

But if you don't need the van Sell it for something more efficient, thats a pretty decent amount of money to burn for such a long drive, I'm facing the same dilemma in buying a car to replace my old one and I only have to drive 200 miles a week, not 500! But reply with how important the Van accommodations are to your family, and then we can logically solve this a bit better.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

People are always looking to upgrade cars for mileage.

I've had people tell me to get a new car because the new ford focus gets 40 mpg instead of my DH's 25. Well great, 15 mpg for what? The car still runs, so why replace something not broken?

If you don't need the van, then replace it. If you do, then why bother with the hassle?

[AmyFurl]

Sell the van?

Well, we do have 4 children and 2 dogs, but funny thing we rarely are all in the car at the same time. What I plan to do, is sell the van to get a more gas efficient car, then in 6 months to a year, pay cash for an older used van that's reliable. We only have a need for the space in the van I'd say maybe once a week, twice tops. It wouldn't hurt, for now, to take two cars if all 6 of us happen to go somewhere together. I only take the dogs in the van on the weekends, and usually when I do only 1 of the kids come along. (I take the dogs to our area dogpark). Usually it's just me driving the van to and from work and to and from errands. I have lately been taking his cobalt for the errands. In November alone, my husband spent $120 less on gas than I did and we drive about the same distance, give or take.

[disneysteve]

Let's say you can sell the van for a break-even price. How much would the replacement car cost you? Would you be paying cash or financing? If financing, at what rate?

You just need to make sure that you are looking at all costs involved, not just the fuel cost. If you are extending the life of your car loan, that's an issue. If the rate would be higher, that's an issue. If maintenance costs might be higher, that's an issue. Just make sure the fuel savings don't get eaten up by other costs involved in getting a new car.

[amarowsky]

well this comes back to what I brought up originally, would trading cars with your Husband be a problem? If he only has to drive say 150 miles a week compared to your 500(+ depending on errands) then that totally dissolves your problem, you still have the van available when he's not working and you are saving your money on gas throughout the year.

[cschin4]

The "trade in your car because of the price of gas" thing is overrated in my opinion. Do the math.

First, you have only driven your van for a year. I am sure you paid a hefty tax and other costs that you aren't factoring in if you sell or trade your van at a loss (which you indeed will so don't delude yourself) and the taxes and cost of another car will be FAR MORE than paying a few hundred dollars a year more for gas.

How many miles will you really be driving per year? 30K? If you drive 30K miles and gas is $4 gal that would be 1300 gallons of gas for a cost of $5200 (approx). Since gas is about $2.79 your cost now would be about $3600 per year. If you bought a car that gets 35 mpg, the cost would be about $3428 at $4 or or $2390 at $2.79. So, in reality if gas is $4 a gallon you would save about $1772. Over the next 5 yrs that would be about 8860. ( and gas is not $4 now so it is much less). Anyway, bear with me.

So, do you really think that you would gain ANYTHING to trade, lose money on your trade, and the initial costs of buying ANOTHER car including taxes, etc. In reality, the cheapest car to drive is the one you already have.
But, I rarely have met anyone who has traded in "good gas mileage" who actually sat down and calculated how many miles per year they drive, the mpg, the cost of gas and then the actual difference and the real costs of trading in.

[cschin4]

However, one other question. Did you figure the cost of commuting into taking the new job?