If you drive 25 miles each way, how much are those 50 miles really costing you?
A commute is easy to estimate at the gas pump and easy to underestimate everywhere else. Tire wear, oil changes, repairs and the decline in your vehicle’s value are real costs of additional miles, even when they are not paid on the same day.
What we put into the calculator
We model a 25-mile one-way drive, five days per week, for 48 weeks. The car returns 25 miles per gallon and fuel costs a hypothetical $3.50 per gallon. We assign 8 cents per mile to maintenance and 10 cents per mile to depreciation. Parking and tolls are set to zero.
The numbers behind the result
| Annual commuting miles | 12,000 mi |
|---|---|
| Fuel | $1,680 |
| Maintenance + depreciation | $2,160 |
| Parking + tolls | $0 |
| Cost per mile | $0.32 |
What the result is really telling you
The value of one mile is not just gasoline divided by MPG. If an older car’s remaining resale value is small, you may want to choose a lower depreciation rate; if it has expensive tires or frequent repairs, maintenance may be higher. Use actual receipts and local fuel prices when available.
Try changing one number
Keep every assumption the same and reduce the one-way distance from 25 to 15 miles. Then change maintenance to 15 cents per mile to see the effect of a vehicle with higher upkeep.
Open interactive calculator with this example ↗Where the estimate stops
This illustration excludes auto insurance, parking not entered, financing, lost time, tolls, accidents and unexpected repairs. The maintenance and depreciation rates are user-supplied assumptions, not nationwide cost benchmarks.
How this result was produced: The displayed values are evaluated by the same JavaScript formula as the linked MyFastCalcTools calculator. There are no hidden live quotes or market data in this example. The calculator explains its simplifying assumptions.