1987 Honda Accord DX review from North America

My Honda is now 14 years old and I am thinking about putting it out to pasture. Since I am a financial guy, I always wanted to tally the total cost of car ownership. Supposedly, Hondas have good maintenance records...

Over the past 14 years and 126,000 miles, I managed to save every repair and maintenance receipt. With this, along with some reasonably accurate estimate work, I have been able to track the total cost of ownership for this automobile. I have compiled the results of this 14 year long study below.

Total Cost of Car Ownership

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$ 10,600 Original purchase price

$ 16,000 Car insurance

$ 17,000 Maintenance: all repairs, oil, breaks, mufflers, clutch, etc...

$ 6,000 Gas

$ 1,000 Sales tax, excise tax, annual registration

$ 2,263 Interest on bank loan

$ 1,300 Parking tickets, towing

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$ 54,163 Total (.42 cents a mile)

Wow. My first conclusion is that this car is a L-e-m-m-o-n. $17k in repairs over 126k miles seems about right for a Yugo. But who knows, maybe this is actually below average (as consumer reports would lead you to believe).

I am surprised how expensive it has been to own this automobile. My situation is a little unusual since my mileage averaged 9,000 miles per year -- about half of the US average. In any case, whats most intriguing to me is the fact that the purchase price is only 1/5th of the total cost.