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What is your avg car payment per car not including fuel, insurance, maintence.

  • $0 because they are paid off

    Votes: 106 33.9%
  • $300 and Under

    Votes: 34 10.9%
  • $301 -$600

    Votes: 121 38.7%
  • $601 - $1000

    Votes: 43 13.7%
  • $1001 +

    Votes: 9 2.9%

What Is Your Average Monthly Car Payment? Please vote

10K views 240 replies 108 participants last post by  Sold Over Sticker 
#1 · (Edited)
This is just to get descriptive data from our group here. The other day I read that about 33% of US single family homes are paid off, which got me thinking about our cars. How many of us have no car payment, and those that do, how much is it. Do not include insurance, fuel, maintenance. Just monthly payment including leases. Not judging here, just wondering for the poll.

Personal note: In my car group of friends, we keep thinking $300 is a good monthly payment that number has been the same for years and years. As we age, $300 isnt going to cover much. And now the average auto transaction price is something like $33,000.

Rule #1 for clicks
 
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#29 ·
We have three cars:

2019 Ridgeline: Paid outright with trade from my (paid off) Golf R, my Golf R parts (parted out), and selling my Ranger.

2019 Miata: Saved up for a while for a good down payment, and I paid it off within a year of buying in. Payment within the year was $400.

2017 Civic: We still have a loan on this car. It's $300, but the interest rate is 0.9%. So we let it ride, paying ~$4 per month in interest charges for the pleasure.

Our previous Golf R had payments of $400 when we had a loan on it.


I guess you could say I'm 'comfortable' with payments in the <= $500 range.
 
#30 · (Edited)
39, single, living alone.

Two cars both paid off:
  • 2008 BMW 335i - converted to a dedicated track car. Paid off back in 2010.
  • 2010 Toyota RAV4 Ltd - my "donkey". Bought it used and paid cash for it back in 2018. I use it for everything: grocery getting, hauling lumber and supplies from HD, ski trips to the Rockies, camping. I recently put a tow hitch and I plan on towing the BMW to HDPE events all over the midwest.

I've not had a car payment since 2010. It's awesome! Do I lust after the new cars?.. sure I do. Do I need a new car? Hell no.
 
#31 ·
The leftover 19 GLI S is $326 including gap insurance. This was one of those "0 down 0% 72mo" deals that VW was running for a while, and even the warranty is 6/72. It was 22,500 OTD.

It replaced my first loan, my 2017 Focus ST st2 I bought in 11/2018 with 27k miles for $18,500. The loan was terrible because my bank was terrible-6% interest despite promising me 4. It was a long, painful process and the payment was $409. I got 12.5 on trade in which was pretty good considering a different dealer was 9600 and it's true market value was 14 or 15K-this was also in April when the economy went to isht.
 
#38 · (Edited)
This is just to get descriptive data from our group here. The other day I read that about 33% of US single family homes are paid off, which got me thinking about our cars. How many of us have no car payment, and those that do, how much is it. Do not include insurance, fuel, maintenance. Just monthly payment including leases. Not judging here, just wondering for the poll.

Personal note: In my car group of friends, we keep thinking $300 is a good monthly payment that number has been the same for years and years. As we age, $300 isnt going to cover much. And now the average auto transaction price is something like $33,000.
Ehh, hang on here a minute.

That IS part of your monthly payment to have a car. It's also another reason why I lease, especially the maintenance part. It's easy to come in here with a paid off POS and brag you don't have a car payment, but if you are daily driving a Mk4 Jetta and draining your checking account every month buying parts and fixing it up, that's a real cost, with real impact to your wallet. Further, what is your time worth? I don't want to spend what little free time I get under a car. I want to be ENJOYING the car.

The Highlander is leased and I am in the lower $4s on that. The boat has 6 months to go and I am also in the 4s for that.

Once the boat is paid off, I will only have a leased car payment.
 
#40 ·
That IS part of your monthly payment to have a car. It's also another reason why I lease, especially the maintenance part. It's easy to come in here with a paid off POS and brag you don't have a car payment, but if you are daily driving a Mk4 Jetta and draining your checking account every month buying parts and fixing it up, that's a real cost, with real impact to your wallet. Further, what is your time worth? I don't want to spend what little free time I get under a car. I want to be ENJOYING the car.
Well, thread is about car payment which is a single variable. If you bring maintenance into it, sure it's important but now you're starting to talk TCO and have added a variable. And if we're talking TCO then we should bring fuel and insurance in which are three and four.

All of those things are highly variable, perhaps none moreso than maintenance costs. As someone that can wrench and has all the VW tools, I could keep a Mk4 Jetta running on junkyard parts with my own labor for next to nothing (a whole longblock for those is what, $200?). It's not a waste of my free time, I like wrenching and hanging out in the garage and it's a big part of the hobby for me. Conversely, my mother who only ever uses dealers for maintenance would probably exceed the value of the car yearly.
 
#41 ·
Golf R - It's a lease at $560 a month, 0 down.
Cayman - cash money baby! :D I couldn't justify going into debt for a pure toy.
Wife's 2015 Golf - paid for. It was financed at $400 a month for 4 years, has been paid off for a year and half now. It's in the magic zone where it's paid for and hasn't yet needed a repair, including on wear items. As far as cheap cars go this one has been great for us. Wife is thinking of handing this one down to the kids, assuming our daughter can master the manual, and leasing something nice.
 
#42 ·
Unless you drive something that’s a total crappile or really high performance, maintenance is pretty much a non issue. In the first hundred thousand miles, a car needs probably a set of brakes for ~$800 and a set of tires for about the same. And probably an oil change every year for around $80-100 and probably $80-100 of “misc” filters, fluids, etc. So if we’re talking 10 years for 100k miles, that’s ~$80x4/yr, $320, $27/mo. BFD.
 
#44 ·
Quite weighted for me. I have one that is extremely cheap and one that is not. So it averages out to be sorta high, but not really indicative of what I spend...
 
#46 ·
3 cars, own 2 outright (paid off the VW, Sequoia was a cash purchase). Pay ~$350/month for the Accord, but since you said AVERAGE, it's only $115/ month/ car! Like the OP, $300-400/ month is where we're comfortable, but with the rising cost of cars, I don't know how long we can sustain that.
 
#153 ·
My mental limit started at $300 and is now stretching to $350. Only one new car in there (19' Mazda3) the others were all 2-3 year old used vehicles with 30k miles or less. Ideally I only want to have one car payment at a time as well. The 'fun' cars are under $10k paid in full. The reliable, comfortable things are financed.
 
#51 ·
Six cars, five are paid off. I have seven months of $450 to go on the Subie. Note the six cars includes a 2017 GTI, so we have two very nice new cars to go with the fleet of old, older, and oldest.

We like to pay off new cars in 2-3 years max. They don't make you any money. Why sit on the debt unless it is at stupidly low interest? We did once have a zero interest car loan. Paid the minimum on that for as long as it lasted. That was not costing us anything, so whatever.
 
#55 ·
It is interesting how the $300 or $400 is a magic number for so many people, and one that they have likely kept for a couple decades now while inflation and car prices have moved forward.

I have a buddy like this, who I have to remind that his method of keeping a $400 payment for a ~$40k vehicle was taking some trade equity into a 39 month lease, followed by him buying the car at the end of the lease for a 60 month term. Sorry bud, not everyone wants to finance for 99 months :D
 
#57 ·
$500 ($5XX) has been my number forever, and our income has gone up 3x since I started working :laugh:

Difference is the rest of my lifestyle costs have gone up too, and cars need to be a decreasing portion of the budget than when I was 25 and single and didn’t have a care in the world.
 
#71 ·
Just this year alone? My M2 was $765, sold it in June. Picked up the 328d and that monthly payment is $550. E39 and E46 are paid in full. When I had my Fiesta ST that was $415 monthly payment. Isn't the new average monthly payment in the $600s? I've only heard of one person who's had a $120 monthly payment and that was for a $9k Hyundai.
 
#76 ·
$390 on the Golf R. Paying extra to finish off the loan sooner. Same with my home loan, was trying to pay off in 20 yrs , but will probably be 24-ish.
 
#82 ·
$300 for the CC, $350 for the Alltrack. 60 month terms on both. At this stage of our lives with young children just coming off of daycare expenses, it seems frivolous to have any more money going towards transportation, especially in light of COVID and the lack of commuting my wife and I do since March.
 
#84 ·
The Touareg payment is ~$505. Everything else I own outright. I went for many years without a payment until I bought the T-reg last year. Plan is to pay it off ASAP and go for another stretch without payments.
 
#89 · (Edited)
2020 GT Porsche (@72mo)... you know which one I answered :rolleyes:

Also, I don't think "average" is a good measure. I could have a $1000 payment and a $200 payment, and my "average" would be $600. But that's not representative of my actual payments - because I'd be answering lower than someone with 1 car at $700/mo., yet I'm paying more in total.
 
#92 ·
Also, I don't think "average" is a good measure. I could have a $1000 payment and a $200 payment, and my "average" would be $600. But that's not representative of my actual payments - because I'd be answering lower than someone with 1 car at $700/mo., yet I'm paying more in total.
This is very relevant to my life :laugh::thumbup:
 
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